


Sunday Morning Coming Down

by crazydiamondsue



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Banter, Character Study, Ensemble Cast, Episode: s05e22 The Gift, First Time, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Secret Relationship, Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:59:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 67,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazydiamondsue/pseuds/crazydiamondsue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the summer after "The Gift," Xander struggles to come to terms with the resurrection spell in light of the reality of Buffy's death and his changing feelings for Spike. Slash plus ensemble grief think piece. With smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Cause there's something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone.  
> And there's nothing short of dying, half as lonesome as the sound  
> Of the sleeping city sidewalks - Sunday morning coming down.

Xander concentrated on the rumble of the lawn mower beneath his hands, using the vague grey outline of the headstone to guide him in the near darkness. Mowing after dark was not on the list of safer things he'd done, but safety seemed to be a concept that had little meaning anymore.

He edged as close as he could to the hard grey stone, not concerned about doing too neat a job, since pulling the few weeds that grew at the base would give Willow and the girls something mindless and comforting to do when they came here tomorrow.

He shut the mower off and listened as its soothing, mind filling noise died away, bringing back all of the thoughts it had muffled. He leaned down and picked up the t-shirt he had tossed aside, using it to brush off most of the grass and dirt that clung to his chest and arms. He flexed his shoulders, feeling the sticky itchiness of grass and sweat on his back and half-heartedly swiped the shirt between his shoulder blades, knowing he was stuck with the discomfort until he went home and showered.

Still, he lingered for a minute and looked at the area around the grave with a detached appraisal. He poked at a pile of grass with his sneaker and then made a decision, dropped the shirt and walked back over to the car to pop open the trunk and pulled out a rake. Job worth doing's worth doing well, he reasoned.

He had just started to rake the grass into a neat pile when he heard it. He stopped, easing up to lean his weight against the rake as he spoke into the darkness behind him. "Might as well come on out, Spike."

He heard a quiet cough and then the rustle of leather as he turned to face the vampire that strolled out of the darkness.

Xander smiled humorlessly at the look of irritated confusion on Spike's face. "Yes, I knew you were there," he said, watching as Spike smoked and affected a bored stance. "My super-human skills alerted me to the flicking of the biggest lighter known to man and then my spider-sense really started tingling as the cloud of smoke drifted over my head."

Spike shrugged, not meeting his gaze, so Xander turned back to his task, neatly arranging the rest of the pile and then using the rake and the edge of his shoe to push it toward the base of the tree.

"Looks good," Spike said abruptly.

Xander nodded briefly, his hands clenching on the wooden handle. "I guess."

"Why're you doin' this at night? Seems it'd be easier when you can see. Get the witches and demon girl to help out."

Xander shook his head, keeping his back to Spike. "It's easier for me to come after I get off work." He stopped, still toeing the grass at his feet, crushing it into the earth. "Anyway, I like to do it before the girls come out here. It's just something I need to do…by myself."

He cast a glance back at Spike and saw the other man nodding slowly, his gaze still on the ground, the cigarette poised at his lips. "Come here a lot?" Xander asked quietly.

Spike grew even more still, staring at the cigarette in his hand. "A bit."

Xander cleared his throat. "But never with us."

Spike chuckled darkly. "Well, sunny Sunday mornings aren't good for me." He met Xander's surprised look. "That night…" he voice trailed a way for a moment and then he shrugged. "Flowers are always fresh," he finished simply.

Xander looked back down, seeing the faded lilies from last week and knowing that Dawn would replace them tomorrow, that tight little line of concentration on her forehead, as if arranging them right was the most important thing she'd ever do.

His fingers tightened on the rake handle, and he felt the harshness of the wood dig into calluses and fresh blisters, and took comfort from the pain. He knew what he was going to ask, felt the words rising in his throat even, but saying them would mean hearing them. Hearing them would make them real and real required an answer, and that answer could destroy all that was left of the black and white of good and evil.

"Did you really love her?" And that was his voice, dark and trembling, but the words were out.

"Did _you_?"

And somewhere in his mind, Angel was laughing at him, Xander thought. He knew what Spike meant. Not 'she was my best friend, loved the hell out of her,' but _loving_ her. The love that had been tangled up in five years of trying to fight at her side, walking in her shadow, intertwining in wistful glances and taking all he could get out of lingering hugs. The love that even he dared not name and never examined; lost in Patsy Cline songs he didn't play anymore and giving the dreams he'd had of it to another blonde.

But did he want to share any of that with Spike? Getting at best a knowing smirk or at worst a pitying glance and the offer to cry over it into a beer. "I loved the idea of loving her," he suddenly heard himself say. "She was…" he smiled at the grass stained toe of his shoe. "Just this amazing girl. This brave, pretty, and funny girl who wanted to hang out with me - with us. She was there in between me and Willow, you know? Not keeping us apart, but," he sighed, "keeping us focused on something besides the way Will felt for me that I couldn't feel back."

He shrugged. "She was a distraction and a purpose and to us, a kind of savior, I guess," he glanced over at Spike to see if he was laughing, but the vampire was just a dark outline and a glowing ember. "But to her we were just her friends. And that's all she ever needed us to be. But she was more. More than I could be for her, so I just gave in. Wrapped it all up in the memory of a first day smile, a flash of blonde hair and a tight little ass." He smiled as he heard Spike chuckle softly. "So yeah, I loved her. In the only way I ever could."

They stood there silent for a moment, and then Spike fumbled inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a flask, tipping it to his lips and then cocking his head and offering it to Xander.

Xander started to wave it off, and then reconsidered, feeling the coolness of Spike's fingers brush against his as he took it from him. He sipped carefully, the burning liquid filling his throat and doing nothing to cool him off or ease his thirst, but nodded his thanks to Spike as he handed it back.

"I get that, Harris," Spike said, walking over to lean against the hood of Xander's car as he steadied his flask and lit another cigarette. "But what I can't suss out is why _you_ can't bloody see…" he sighed, dragging deeply on the cigarette and then waving the flask out with a short laugh. "Why you, white knight, Slayer's stalwart, stupidly brave champion could follow blindly behind her and not feel good enough for her while I--" he paused, looked back up at a silent Xander and then glanced away.

"Why none of you could see it was real. Not you, not her, not the bleeding lot of you. Oh, that's right," he said, reaching up to tap against his temple. "Evil here, must have some nefarious plan for the Chosen One. Not just seeing something in her, feeling something from her, or wanting to see."

Spike smoked quietly for a moment and Xander wondered why, even though he had answered Spike's question honestly, hell, even _wanted_ to answer it, Spike was talking about Buffy to him, of all people. Xander shifted uncomfortably, filled with what felt like awkward realization that Giles only saw Spike as a messy but necessary means to an end, and Willow and Tara would just squirm uncomfortably at Spike's over-share and maybe pat his hand before easing quietly away, and Dawn, well, the less said to her about Buffy these days, the better.

"I offered to stake Dru for her, you know."

Xander felt his throat tighten, not wanting to care about that. Not wanting to believe that vampires could love, because that made them more than monsters, and they had to be…

Xander fiddled with the handle, thoughts occurring that shouldn't be considered. Could he have killed Willow for Buffy? Even an evil, soulless Willow? That time, that one time he'd believed Buffy had put Angel before them, before Willow, he'd said, God, he'd told Buffy he'd kill her… "Would you have?" he asked quietly.

Spike shrugged, dropping the cigarette and grinding it beneath his boot. "Dunno. Thought I could, but seeing Dru, looking between them…Buffy brought things out in me I didn't want to see, and don't want to be there. And then there was Dru, giving me release from all the fucking..._light_ and," he sighed. "Yeah, for her, I could have."

Spike's eyes left the ground they'd both suddenly found so interesting and pinned Xander's, and Xander realized that the vampire was aware too, of their sudden shared understanding, that Xander was _hearing_ Spike, seeing him for maybe the first time. "Doesn't matter now, Harris. Doesn't fucking matter. Not to you, not to me. And not to her. And I don't care if you want to wrap her up and tuck her away in some special place inside where you think I can't touch and won't ever sully. Because I _did_, you know. Doubt the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar," Spike's gaze never left Xander's eyes, eyes Xander knew were filled with confusion at the unfamiliar words as well a dawning realization, "But never doubt I love."


	2. Chapter 2

Anya turned the jeweler's box over and over in her hands. She unconsciously rubbed her thumb against the velveteen. Her fingers tightened around it, her nails digging into her palm. She rose from the couch and looked out the window again.

Xander had eaten dinner and changed clothes after work. She had glanced at the clock as he left. 7:09. Ten minutes to get from their apartment to Buf…the Summers' house to pick up the lawn mower. Five to ten minutes there if he stopped to talk to Willow, which he certainly had, she thought with a brief flash of irritation. Twenty minutes from there to Breaker's Woods. Five minutes to unload the lawn mower. Ten minutes to mow. Ten minutes more to do that obsessive grass clearing and flower re-arranging. Twenty minutes back to the Summers'. He never stayed to chat after, so ten minutes back to their apartment. Roughly an hour and a half from start to finish, meaning that Xander should walk through the door, sweaty and glistening, at 8:39.

She looked toward the door. It was 9:05.

Anya glanced again at the phone sitting on the table. It was centered exactly, as if someone had picked it up and put it back several times. Her fingers twitched toward it and then she could hear Xander telling her that calling to check on him every five minutes was needy and clingy and not what normal girlfriends did.

Anya wasn't sure if that was true or not, but it seemed to be borne out by the few female acquaintances she had. Willow was always _with_ Tara, so no need to call there. Buffy had always seemed surprised and belatedly happy to see Riley show up somewhere; as if the thought of calling to check his location had never occurred to her.

But Xander was thirty minutes late and that was really late. Sunnydale call-the-morgue late. Her fingers twitched again. She wouldn't call him. She frowned in frustration. She should have been using this time to plan what she was going to say. So far she had, _Xander, we need to talk_, followed by shoving the ring box in his face in case he had questions about the topic.

Xander had proposed in May. It was now almost August. They had buried Buffy, guarded the Hellmouth, kept the Slayer's death quiet in the demon community, and tried to give Dawn a normal home with two lesbian witch foster-mothers, three cajoling uncles and wacky Aunt Anya.

Xander worked, Giles worried, Willow and Tara spelled, Spike skulked, Dawn grieved and Anya…waited.

As each day had passed, their lives had crossed further and further back into normal. Anya had looked at the ring box on the dresser every day, hoping that one day it wouldn't be there and there would be a suspicious lump in Xander's pocket. But still it sat there every night, just getting dusty. Anya had tried scooting it closer to Xander's side of the armoire, but he'd seemed not to notice.

So tonight she was going to ask him. If he was waiting for the right moment, she was going to _make_ the moment. But he was late. Her fingers were cramped painfully around the box and then they were opening and reaching for the phone.

Xander unlocked the door and stepped inside, his t-shirt slung over his bare shoulder, his chest, arms, shorts and legs flecked with grass. He smelled warm and sweaty and like dirt and grass and…whiskey?

"Xander, I was worried," Anya said, dropping the hand with the ring box behind her back. "It should have been 95 minutes but it was 120 minutes and that's an increase of twenty-one percent, and I didn't call, Xander, did you notice I didn't?"

Xander had his head ducked, toeing off a tennis shoe and shaking it out onto the floor mat. His socks followed, rubbed green around the ankles, and then his hands were at his waist, unbuttoning his shorts and pushing them over his hips and down his legs. Naked, he scratched absently below his navel, brushing off the line of grass that had worked its way beneath his waistband.

Anya stood looking at him for a moment as he piled his grass stained clothes together and stepped over them. "Xander," she said softly, reaching up to loop her arms around his neck.

He jerked back from her slightly, grabbing at her hands. "Ahn. I need a shower," he said shortly, backing away. His eyes met the hurt, uncertain look in hers and he smiled tightly. "I'm sorry, sweetie. Sweaty. Gritty. Grumpy. Just let me get clean, okay?"

He turned away from her and walked toward the bathroom, pausing at the door to toss her an apologetic smile.

"Okay," Anya said softly, nodding to herself as Xander closed the door behind him. She spun the box between her hands. "_Xander_, we need to talk. Xander, we _need_ to talk…"

* * *

Xander stood under the shower spray, the water as hot as he could make it, watching blades of green puddle at his feet and swirl down the drain. His head throbbed with that ache that came when you'd had enough hard liquor to feel it but quit before you got drunk.

He felt a little weak and empty, too, like after a hard cry. He hadn't cried, though. He'd given Spike a look inside the mind of Xander Harris, but he hadn't given him that. He'd seen Spike cry, once, the day that Buffy had fallen. They'd all seen it, but they'd turned away from him and to each other, because it had been, well, embarrassing. Embarrassed to think that he cared that much and they hadn't known, and embarrassed for the vampire at having to reveal that much in front of them.

Xander closed his eyes tightly, letting the water fall full on his face. He'd shared warm and fuzzies, well, more like cold and bitters, with Spike. Sat on the car, talked about the 'old days' and shared a flask. Like two guys. He hadn't felt like calling him 'Fangless' once. And when Spike left, he'd said, "All right, then…Xander."

Xander turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist. He opened the door and walked into the living room to find Anya sitting on the couch, with the ring box cupped in her hands.

Xander cleared his throat. "Um, Anya, I'm just gonna head to bed, okay? It was a long day and we have to be at Dawn's early tomorrow and --"

"Xander. We need to talk."

Xander tucked the towel in more tightly and edged back toward the bedroom. "Not tonight, okay, Ahn? Tomorrow, I promise we'll --"

"Xander, ask me again."

Xander stopped, his hands tightening on the towel. "What?"

"Ask me again. You promised. You'd ask me again, when the world didn't end. So, I'm asking you to, Xander." She looked at him, her lips trembling, but her gaze firm. "Ask me again."

"Not…just not now, Anya. I…"

"Well, when, Xander? When the Hellmouth opens? When you finally decide that I'm the best that you're ever going to do? When Willow says it's okay to?"

"Okay – a)? Willow is not the boss of me." Xander paused. "Not as far as you and I are concerned, anyway. And second? You know I love you, Anya. You _are_ the best. There's just so much…with Buffy, and patrolling and Dawn." He couldn't quite meet the glare in Anya's eyes. "But soon, I promise."

Anya shook her head, standing up to cross the room until she faced him. "I'm sorry, Xander. But there's always going to be a 'something and a someday.'" She pressed the ring box into his hand. "So I'm telling you it's now. Ask me."

Xander looked down at the ring box in his hand, flashing back to the day he had picked it out, brought it home and hidden it. To the day in the Magic Box when everything seemed to point to this and all the answers seemed so easy. To the moment when he looked at Buffy's broken body on the ground and felt everything he'd ever believed tilt. To the look in Spike's eyes tonight, that seemed to reflect everything in his. He looked back up, seeing the hope and the fear in Anya's eyes, and knowing only one of those was in his, and not the one she needed to see. "I'm sorry, Anya. I can't."

Anya nodded slowly, her movements jerky as she turned and grabbed her purse and started silently toward the door.

"Anya, wait!" Xander started after her, catching her as she stepped out into the hallway. Anya turned back, her look expectant. "Where…where are you going to go?"

Anya's face closed and she shook his hand off of her arm. "I doesn't matter anymore, Xander. Not to you." She walked quickly away and Xander started after her, feeling his towel slip down his hips.

"Damn it!" he jumped back into the apartment, holding the towel in front of him. He looked around and then walked quickly back into the bedroom, jerking on a pair of jeans and pulling a t-shirt over his head. Dressed, he shoved his feet into shoes and grabbed his keys.

He had to figure this out, had to talk this out, no matter what it cost him or how much…stuff...he had to share. He drove carefully through the Sunnydale night, calling himself an idiot the entire way. Even as his hand reached up to knock, he told himself to just let it go, that everything had been said and there was nothing left but to deal with it.

The door opened and a suspicious, hurting gaze met his. "Spike. Can we talk?"


	3. Chapter 3

  
Thirty minutes later, Xander had worked his way through most of a pint of Jack Daniels and his begrudging host was still staring at him with a mixture of suspicion and confusion.

Spike watched over the neck of his own bottle as Xander attempted to right himself atop the sarcophagus, only to list to the side again, snickering. First of all, Harris had showed up at his crypt and knocked – knocked, for fuck’s sake – instead of barging in bellowing, “Fangless! Demons! Come!” Secondly, the boy was all earnest eyes and too-wide smile, asking if they could have a chat, as if their brief and never-to-be-repeated graveside moment had made them mates for life.

So far, the only attempts at conversation Xander had made were, “Got any more whiskey?” and “Soap.Net, huh? How’d ya get cable?” Spike had answered obligingly, “Suppose I do,” and “Saw a man about a hook-up,” and then left off, watching Harris drink himself into oblivion and stare back at him, start to speak and then drink again.

When those dark and increasingly bleary eyes darted his way again, Spike wedged his bottle between his knees and leaned forward, sighing. “Something on your mind, Xander? ‘M guessin’ the Bit’s not in trouble and there’s not another bloody world ending afoot, or you would have already blathered my ears off. So just spell it out, already. The not caring’s killing me.”

What followed was an eruption of babble so over-lapping that even Spike’s vampire hearing had to strain to sort it out. Something about “Anya” and “ring” and “fucked up big time” and what could have been a terribly off-key rendering of _What’s Love Got to Do With It_, followed by a stream of hysterical giggles and ending with a whimper of “nothing matters now, anyway” and “why did you have to say that?”

Spike sat and considered all of that for a moment, watching the other man suck desperately at his drained bottle. “So…let me get this straight. Anyanka left you because you refused to propose _again_, because evidently once wasn’t the charm, so you decided to come over here and butcher Tina Turner an’ drink my whiskey because I _care_? Isn’t that, uh, Red’s job?”

Xander snorted. “Yeah. Willow. That’d be helpful. She’d be all ‘ding-dong, the demon’s gone’, we’ll make cookies and poof – all better, and anyway she doesn’t have whiskey and itwasallyourfaultbuddy!”

Spike choked on the mouthful of whiskey he’d just gulped. “_My_ fault? You didn’t have the stones to honor a promise you made to a sodding vengeance demon and it’s _my_ fault?”

Xander frowned, swaying a little and scraping his palms against rough stone as he attempted a graceful dismount. Spike smirked -- this obviously wasn’t going at all the way Harris had pictured in his fevered, liquor-fueled Agony Aunt imagination. A slurred, "Pfft - some evil friend _Spike_ turned out to be..." had the vampire raising his hand in a calming gesture. 

“Oh, don’t go, Harris,” Spike said, waving Xander back to his ungainly perch. “You Scoobies have tried to pin a lot on me in the past, but this has got to be the most creative. Please, enlighten me as to why I am the fly in your matrimonial ointment. Is it some good soapy plot? Get suspicious that Anyanka and I were having a steamy affair?” Spike grinned wolfishly. “Or did she get a whiff of me on ya tonight and think that maybe you and I had some steamy secrets of our own? Oh, tell, tell, Xander. I’m intrigued.”

Xander’s jaw hung open and he snapped it shut just in time to avoid a deluge of drool. “You and Anya?!” Then he glared, angered into a sudden sobriety. “Take that back, you…you impotent menace! And you and me? Bah-leah.”

Harris started to attempt another indignant exit and caught himself right before a face-to-cement impact. “It was what you said tonight. About you and Buffy,” he muttered, his eyes darting everywhere but Spike's indulgently evil smirk.

Spike leaned back, his hands clenching on the armrests of his chair, all signs of laughter gone. “What about me and Buffy?” he asked quietly, the words soft and even, but the implied threat in every tense coil of his body.

“That she made you…you said you would have changed for her, if she’d wanted it. I think your exact words were, ‘go all poofy and whipped like Angel,’ if she’d asked. You’d give up everything that meant anything to you, because she was everything. And I don’t know what that’s like.”

Spike’s shoulders relaxed minutely as he looked at Xander, seeing the sadness and loneliness in the boy’s hunched stance, the ‘kick me now, please’ stamped on his face alongside whiskey scented belligerence.

“’S that right, now?” Spike asked in a world-weary tone, tipping the bottle again.

“You know the first time I told Anya I loved her?” Xander continued, as if Spike hadn’t spoken. “The night Riley left. I gave Buffy the ‘chase your dreams’ speech and then watched her take off into the night like some chick flick nightmare, racing toward true love. I even had this whole scenario of them running into each other’s arms, power ballad blaring, and love triumphing over vampire prostitution, brain tumors and mystical destiny.” He chuckled bitterly.

“So I went home and told Anya that I was in love with her. Powerfully, painfully in love with her. Because I wanted to be. I wanted to be the hero, get the girl, have the big romance. Get my heart broken; have hot, angry make-up sex. Get to be the one who ached with love, cried over it, would have died for it. So that’s what Anya was supposed to be about.” Xander looked down at the empty bottle in his hands. “That’s what Anya was always about.”

Spike bit back the, _Fuck, Xander, you’re such a bleeding girl_, that hovered on his tongue as he remembered a century of dancing to Dru’s quirky tune. Remembered blocking out how she had screamed for ‘Daddy’ and the way it had filled an empty, abandoned factory. And the crumbs he’d begged from the Slayer and salted with his innuendo. His eyes widened and he chuckled darkly.

“Seems like I’m not the only one who’s bent over and played the bitch for love.” He sniggered with genuine amusement as Xander shot up from his drunken lurch.

“Hey! I am _nobody’s_ bitch!” Xander stood frozen, his finger pointed stiffly at Spike, and then his finger began to tremble as a grin overrode his manly sneer. “But I am _way_ frickin’ wasted,” he giggled.

Spike’s lips quirked up in an answering smile. “You, mate, are bloody pissed,” he agreed companionably, toasting Xander with a JD salute.

* * *

“…so then there’s Dru, simpering around him like he’s the second bloody coming, and Angel leans over…”

“Angelus,” Xander corrected, with only a slight slurring.

"Angel," Spike said pointedly, bumping his shoulder into Xander's for further emphasis. "That 'Angelus' rot is just a sodding affectation; he's the same bastard by any other name. So, Angel leans over and says, 'Any responsibility I can assume while you're spinning your wheels...' and then he runs his greasy, soulless, beady-ass eyes over my Dru and says, 'Anything I'm not already doing, that is.'" Spike downed another shot. "Fuckin' wanker."

Xander nodded firmly, squirming a bit to get more comfortable as they sat leaned against the hard marble bier. "What a dick."

"But you mark my words, whelp," Spike said, grinning as Xander repeated, ‘Whelp,’ with a giggling snort, "you ask the Watcher, the witches, or any of the rest of the truth and justice lot, who they want on their side against the next Big Bad? It won't be Spike or Xander. Nooo. The next time the world goes to shit? They'll be ringin' up His Broodiness while you and I stand there, more man than he'll ever be, soul or no soul."

"Hey! I've got a soul, Spike. I'm souled."

"Nah. Seen you dance. I'm thinkin' pure evil," Spike laughed.

Xander laughed back, pushing his hair off his forehead as he met Spike's answering grin.

Spike snickered thoughtlessly, looking at Xander and seeing nothing - well, besides drunken goofiness - but laughter. And something like what he'd seen in the Niblet's wide-eyed grin when he was telling a particularly gory tale. Acceptance. Interest. Affection.

Spike cocked his head and his smile faded as he looked at Xander's flushed face, a grin still tugging the corners of the boy's lips as he spun his empty bottle between them.

"Harris," Spike said quietly.

Xander looked up, his grin widening as a snappy comeback shaped his mouth, and then Spike's lips were on him. Tentative, whiskey flavored heat met Spike's coolness and he groaned helplessly as his hand hand came up to grasp the back of Xander's neck. Xander's mouth had been open in half-spoken reply, his lips lax and shocked. Just as Xander's lips firmed and the boy's tongue appeared to give up on talking and take up tangling, Spike pulled away, shaking his head.

"That's a bad idea, Xander."

Xander stared back at him, mouth open, lips agape, his tongue still seeming to attempt to twine around the phantom of Spike's. "Huh?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue from BtVS S-2 "Passion"


	4. Chapter 4

Spike leapt up, avoiding Xander's horrified stare, although he couldn't miss the erratic heartbeat and strangled gasps. He bent down next to his chair and fished through the refuse for another bottle. He opened it, flinging the cap across the room, and took a huge – manfully – inhuman swig.

"You…you kissed me," finally choked out through the gasping behind him.

"Did not," Spike said, turning to look at Xander and seeing the shocked eyes, the patches of white standing out against alcohol reddened cheeks.

Xander stumbled to his feet. "Yes! You did! You…were…and there were tongues…and, oh my God, Spike…I just broke up with my girlfriend and you get me all drunk and try to," Xander gave a full-body shudder. "Press your vamp lips and your undead…parts all over me?!"

"You're drunk, Xander," Spike said calmly. "You're imagining things." He shrugged, raising the bottle. "Can't drink with the big boys? Don't belly up."

"Wait," Xander said, bracing himself against the tomb. "You, Evil Undead, my new, favorite, best buddy type guy, kissed me and then you said it was a bad idea. Like it was _my_ bad idea."

Spike held up two fingers, turning them toward his eyes and then toward Xander's, wriggling them slowly. "Never. Happened."

Xander frowned, shaking his head. "Spike. Blurry, suddenly gay Spike, you do not have the power of thrall. You cannot make me forget – ack – you, who do not even like me, tonguing me like you were trying to get to my chocolaty center. And, ew, why am I still talking?"

Xander started to make his way out of the crypt, steadying himself with, well mostly crashing into, the few items that could be called furniture in the room.

"Harris. Wait," Spike said, grabbing at Xander's arm as he drunkenly staggered past. "You're not leaving."

"Back off!" Xander yelped, jerking back and almost losing his footing as he fell over the chair. "I don't know what you thought, but this – huh-uh. Not what I…I mean, I know we got all giggly and sharey, but I never meant to…and you were just the only one I thought…"

"Xander," Spike bit out impatiently. "You can't drive. You can barely walk. You're not going anywhere."

Xander straightened, forcing himself to stand without swaying. "Not driving. Nope. But walking? Got it. See?" He started away from Spike with slow, carefully measured steps and then teetered to a stop when Spike sighed behind him.

"Right, then. Hang on a mo'. Let me find a biro so we can write 'Bite Me, Please' on your shirt, in case some of the slower fledges don't clue in from the lovely cocktail of booze, fear and 'hurt me' you're puttin' out there."

Xander turned an uncertain gaze toward the door, and looked back at Spike, considering. He seemed to be finding the unknown army of the freshly unearthed the lesser of two evils. Spike bit back an irritated curse and raised his hands, backing away.

"Just…listen, you can stay here." Xander looked back at him, his eyes heavy-lidded and dazed, but still fearful. "It was a mistake, Xander." Spike smiled at him wryly. "_My_ mistake. Won't happen again, right? So, c'mon then, sit down before you fall down."

Spike pulled Xander around the chair and shoved him none too gently into it, smirking as Xander brushed his hands away. "'S all right, Harris. Go to sleep."

Xander nodded sleepily, twisting around in the chair to get comfortable, his gaze still on Spike and still slightly suspicious.

Spike held up two fingers again, pointing them first toward his eyes and then Xander's, pushing the eyelids gently down. "Sleep. Now."

Xander smiled in spite of himself. "Yes, Master," he said, grinning woozily, and then he was out, his eyes closed tightly, mouth slightly open.

Spike stood staring down at him for a moment, and then turned and found his way down the steps to his bed below.

He pulled the black t-shirt over his head, tossing it across the room and then grimacing as it landed in a puddle left from last night's rain. Right. His boots were carefully removed and placed as far away from the leaking area as possible. He unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down his legs, draping them over the end of the bed. Naked, he lay down in musty, cold, empty sheets and crossed his arms behind his head. He stared at the ceiling, making designs out of the patches of mold, and trying to pinpoint exactly when his life had entered the realm of complete, buggering insanity.

When was the last time he'd just sat and talked to someone? Had to have been Dawn, her so scared that she was something wrong and evil, that it had made him seem almost fluffy in comparison. If he tried hard enough, he could twist some of his shoving matches with Buffy into actual conversations. Before that? One didn't converse with Dru…one danced and sang and shuddered with dark passion, but a cuppa and a chat? No. And somehow he and Angel never managed to work in a pint and a trip back through the glory days between the demon raising, world ending and cuckolding the other vampire was bent on.

So. Bleedin' Harris, the Slayer's droopy-eyed lap-dog, decides to be the big man and put aside over three years of brawling and spitting and generally trying to annoy the hell out of each other. Shares a drink like a regular mate and doesn't snicker when Spike told the tale, complete with grandiose Shakespearean overtones, of the love of a vampire for a slayer. Then the boy goes and decides to _live_ and part of that living is not lying to himself anymore, so he cuts his girl loose before he hurts either of them further. Noble, one could call it, well, possibly not in the demon bint's perspective, but honest in any event.

So he comes to tell his new pal Spike of his life changing decision, because Spike has shown him the light that somehow it's better to suffer for want of real love than live with a pale imitation. And then he drank. Bloody hell, the git could drink. Must be hereditary, Spike thought, remembering the trash bin overflowing with cheap liquor bottles outside the boy's basement. Shares whiskey with him, bares his soul and listens to Spike tear Angel a new one with a happy grin and ready quip.

And just when Spike had relaxed and decided that maybe one of the few positives of losing Buffy would be that he could build new…alliances with her mates....he did what he always did. He wanted more. More than Xander was ready to give, and really more than Spike had meant to ask for.

But he'd sat there comfortable, laughing for the first time since he'd watched a lady fall from a tower like the grimmest of fairy tales, and he'd recognized it. There, beneath the mist of Jack Daniels and dust and sweat and all of the lovely aromas of human skin, he could smell it. Want. Rolling off of Xander, just as it used to from Buffy. But different, because Buffy had been trying like all hell to hide hers, and Xander wasn't really aware of his. But it was there -- faint, musky and sweet, telling Spike everything he needed was in touching distance. Acceptance. Interest. Affection.

Irritated at his own borderline broodiness, Spike flipped angrily over onto his stomach. Okay, so he had. Touched. And the moment his lips had taken Xander's, he'd known it had gained him nothing, and had probably bloody well cost him anything that was left.

 

Xander woke with a taste in his mouth like some tiny woodland creature had crawled in there and died a slow, lingering death. He sat up slowly with a groan and then stilled. Moving. Moving triggered pain. His back muscles spasmed, unable to hold the pose for long, and he fell back against the chair as the pain behind his eyes flared again.

Okay. Hangover. Not the first one, this was just the advanced class. His head pounded, his eyes burned and every muscle in his body felt like it had been ripped out and shoved back in, wrong. Ah, yes, evil whiskey of the evil kind. Why in God's name had he…oh, fuck. Anya.

He'd told Anya he couldn't, and then just let her walk out. And then he had gone to Spike's…oh, fuck. Spike.

Xander jumped out of the chair, instantly regretted that decision, and stood for a minute as blood pounded from the giant knot of horror in his head to flow back into areas that had long been without.

Legs mostly working, he crept carefully to the door and opened it to find suddenly lethal sunlight frying his eyeballs. His heart contracted with horror. _Oh, God, I've been turned!_ Oh, oops. Still just the hangover.

His eyes squinted almost shut, he limped back to his car and turned the ignition. A sudden thrust of his fist cracked the volume button as, "Oh, Mickey, you're so fine!" blared out of the worth-more-than-the-whole-damn-car speakers. Evil noises of dubious pop silenced, he peered at the time display. 11:50 a.m.

So, where to now, Plan Guy? he thought. Home was where the shower and the aspirin lived, but home was…Anya. Shit. It wasn't fair to feel this bad when you felt this bad. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel until even that noise vibrated in the massive wall of pain that had once been his careful, Mr. Reliable brain.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel for a minute and then he was putting the car in gear and backing out. He was going where he should have gone in the first place. A place with no possibly vengy jilted fiancées, no evilly cheerful sunbeams stabbing into his head and no confusing thought-he-was-my-friend demons with naughty…gah. He was not thinking about that. &gt;He was the only asshole he could take right now.

 

The Summers' house was cool and blissfully dark and not the home of demonic sunbeams. It was also really quiet, which was a surprise. Though a house of mourning, it was usually rattling with the strains of sugary pop and shoe theft accusations. Xander walked into the kitchen, hoping to find aspirin, and instead found his best friend stirring honey into a cup of tea with the air of a guru awaiting her pupil.

"Hey, Will."

"Xander." He watched as her eyes took in his rumpled and stained clothes, his blood-shot eyes and his shaky legs.

"Look pretty bad, huh?" he asked, leaning on the counter.

She shrugged lightly, taking a sip of her tea. "'Bout like you smell."

"Thanks." He walked over to the cabinet next to the sink, hunting for painkillers, possibly pain obliterators. "Kinda quiet. What's up with Tara and Dawn?"

"I sent them on to the…woods," Willow said quietly. "I told them we'd see them after."

Xander closed his eyes as his hand gripped the bottle of pain medicine. _Oh, shit. Sunday._

He turned around and saw Willow still watching him carefully. "You know, huh? About Anya."

"Yeah," Willow said softly, and then suppressed a sneer. "She came by at 6:00 a.m. this morning to demand our keys to the Magic Box and said we wouldn't be having our 'demon killer' club meetings there anymore." Willow smiled a little snarkily, tapping her spoon against her cup. "Can't wait to see what Giles says about that."

"Willow."

She sighed, turning to face him again. "I know, Xander. I know that she's hurt, anyway. I'm not going to repeat the words she called you, because I think the blush has finally faded from hearing them."

Xander winced, nodding cautiously.

"Wanna tell me what happened?" Willow asked, reaching out to take his hand in hers.

Xander squeezed it briefly and then let it drop back into her lap. "I came home from mowing to find Ultimatum Anya waiting for me." He looked at the cute little Willow crinkles forming on her forehead and smiled sadly. "At the Magic Box…the day we went to face Glory?" Willow nodded back slowly, the worry in her eyes deepening, "I asked Anya to marry me."

Willow's chin quivered for a minute and then she swallowed. "And you didn't tell me – us – why?"

Xander sighed, "Because she turned me down. She made me promise to ask her again when we all didn't die, to prove that I meant it and it wasn't just some grand gesture." He rubbed his hands roughly against his stubbled cheeks. "Turns out it was some grand gesture."

"Xander, no..."

Xander spread his arms wide, a fake smile stretching across his pale face. "That's me, Will. In love with love. So I played the big romantic, feet-sweeping-off-of guy. But that's not me. I'm no Riley, no Angel." He grinned half-heartedly. "Hell, I'm not even a Tara."

Willow blushed and grinned a little at that.

"So…what now?" she asked. Her grin smoothed into a careful, supportive lilt, but Xander knew that she knew that _he_ knew she knew the thing that she didn't know -- that he was in a lot more pain than he was showing and that there was something…a lot of somethings...he wasn't telling her, and hadn't been telling her for a long time.

Xander shrugged. "_Right_ now? I was hoping I could use your shower and that you'd possibly boil these clothes for me. Then I thought…there are things Anya and I have to say, that she needs to know. I didn't, um, handle it well last night. I just kind of let her walk out without explaining anything."

"And crawled into the nearest dive for some liquid comfort."

Xander ducked his head, looking at his muddy sneakers. "Yeah, right," he muttered bitterly. He looked back up into Willow's face, which was segueing from worried into slightly freaked-out. He grinned gamely, shrugging. "Okay, off to get the funk out of…everything." He reached up, tapping Willow's cheek gently. "Thanks, Will."

Willow smiled back and then jerked away from him, laughing. "Eww. Get out with your fingers of stinkiness." They smiled at each other uncertainly beneath the teasing and Willow reached out to give his hand once last squeeze before she turned back to contemplating her tea with a thoughtful frown.


	5. Chapter 5

Xander eased silently back into his apartment, sighing with relief when he found the living room empty. He felt closer to human, if a bit like an idiot in the too-short sweat pants and two-sizes too small Sunnydale High t-shirt he was wearing. First item on the agenda: finding clothes that were roomy, manly and didn't bind and…accentuate so much. Even though Willow's appreciative snicker had been weirdly flattering.

He started toward the bedroom and then stumbled to a halt when he saw the brightly colored tote bag open on the table, its smiling daisy pattern seeming to mock him with its cheerfulness. He took a deep breath and then choked on it as Anya walked out of the bedroom, her hands full of shampoo, lotion and all of the pastel bottles that had made the apartment smell like her. A sudden pang of sorrow struck him as he pictured his store brand shampoo and shower gel standing lonely on the shower ledge.

Anya had come to a sudden stop, a few of the bottles falling from her hands to bounce against the carpet. As she stooped to pick them up, Xander moved forward quickly to help her, rocking back on his heels as she jerked the bottles away from him and stalked over to the table to shove them into the bag.

Xander got to his feet, eyeing the stiff set of her shoulders as she kept her back to him, mindlessly packing. "Anya," he began, stopping when he saw her stiffen further, her hands stilling inside the bag. She turned slowly to face him, her mouth in a tight line but her expression otherwise blank.

"Where did you go last night?" he asked finally.

"Home, Xander," she said, turning back to grab a pile of lingerie and throw it on top, the zipper rasping loudly as she angrily jerked the bag closed. "You know – to the rooms you insisted I keep even after the big speech about getting this place for me?"

Xander winced, watching as she strode quickly into the kitchen, cabinet doors banging as she opened them at random and tossed things out onto the counter.

Stopping with a bottle of Flintstones vitamins in her hand – _hey, those are mine_ – she turned back to him. "Where did you go last night?"

Xander cleared his throat, his hands rubbing nervously against his thighs. "Wha-what do you mean?"

"I mean, Xander, that I came back. I realized that I hadn't given you time to finish. I accepted the possibility that you had meant to say, 'Anya, I can't…because of the romantic surprise get-away I have planned.'"

She looked down at the bottle in her hands and then tossed it into the sink when a grimace. "So I came back to an empty apartment and realized that no, that was just me being an idiot." She pushed the cabinet door to and then slammed it viciously when it refused to close. "Again."

They stared at each across the expanse of the room and then Anya left the kitchen empty-handed and walked back over to her bag, fiddling with the handle.

"I sat here all night waiting for you. Just…waiting," she finished quietly. She looked up then, tossing her hair back. "So I figured you'd gone to Willow – where else – but you weren't there, Xander. I might have used a few of the more colorful human expressions to convey my shock at that. Willow said she'd tell you that I came by." Her mouth twisted bitterly. "She managed to suppress her dance of joy until after I left."

"Anya, Willow doesn't feel that way…" Xander stopped, holding his hand up as she started to protest. "It doesn't matter what Willow thinks. I realize that I…screwed up last night. Massively. The term 'shithead'? Not uncalled for. You were right to want to leave, but I was wrong not to stop you."

Anya's expression softened slightly. "So…what are you saying, Xander? Are you...are you telling me you can ask me now?"

Xander swallowed several times, his throat tight. He took a death breath, meeting her eyes regretfully. "No, Anya. I'm not."

Anya exhaled sharply, ducking her head as she bit her bottom lip. "I didn't think so." She looked back up at Xander, tears glittering in her eyes. "I don't know what to do, Xander." She gasped a little, jerking as she laughed harshly. "I feel sad, but I feel so angry, too. And the angrier I get, the less sad I feel." She reached a hand up, brushing tears back with an irritated motion. "Is this right? Am I doing it…right?" her voice broke on the last and Xander moved forward quickly, pulling her into his arms.

"I don't know, Anya," he felt her shake against his chest and he tightened his arms around her. "I can't tell you what you should feel." He closed his eyes, his throat working as he swallowed his own tears back. "This doesn't mean…I love you, Anya. I didn't mean that we were…we're not _over_" he said desperately. "We can still date and we'll take things slow and maybe, someday…"

Anya was shaking her head, pulling out of his arms. "No, Xander," she said, crossing her arms across her chest and stepping back. "This isn't just…the ring I can't wear or the apartment where I'm just one drawer. You haven't…" she sighed, "since Buffy…it's not like it was when Joyce died. You cried and I didn't understand, but you let me see you, let me hold you, and I felt all of that through you. But you don't let me, now. Before, I knew you weren't listening sometimes, but now you're not even talking and you don't want me to be there, even if it is just to say the wrong thing. I even _tried_ to say the wrong thing, so that you'd notice I was there, that I was trying, but you don't, Xander. You don't see me anymore…not for a long time."

Xander stood looking at her, hearing the silence between them and knowing that he was supposed to be filling it with…something. All of those things he was going to say about why and regrets and how he'd felt since…he felt so cold and more afraid than he'd ever been in his life. Afraid of watching her walk out that door and afraid of what it would mean if she didn't.

He didn't understand how they'd gotten here. All he remembered was a beautiful girl, her dress sliding down her naked thighs to puddle at her feet, her hand held out, offering him everything. He felt the tears in his throat and managed to choke out, "So…what now?"

God, that was fucking pathetic, he thought, seeing the hurt flash in her eyes and knowing that he had put it there just by…going along. Going along like he always had and saying nothing until it was too late.

"I'm leaving," she said simply, picking up her keys and slowly twisting the triangle shaped one off, placing it gently on the table as she reached for her bag.

He nodded slowly, his hand reaching up to push his hair back. "Right. Um, I guess I'll see you at the Magic Box, and stuff, and I know that's gonna suck for a while, but whatever you…"

"No, Xander," she said quietly, her shoulders squared as she steadied her bag and took her purse. "I mean I'm leaving. Sunnydale."

Xander froze, his fingers tightening in his hair. "You're _leaving_ leaving?" his voice cracked and he shook his head. "To go…where? Anya, you know like, six people in the whole world, and -- "

"And maybe it's time that changed," Anya said, walking toward the door as Xander stood there staring at her.

"You're leaving?" he realized he was repeating himself and groaned in frustration. "How? Wait…Anya, this is…this is way out of control. Stop. We can just…"

"Just what, Xander?" she asked, her hand on the door. "Walk around each other not saying anything? I can't do that anymore. I have money, and thanks to Giles, I have career experience that can be parlayed into more money. I also have a broken heart, which I understand is an excellent means of starting a new life."

Xander flinched and Anya opened the door, looking back at him. "I know why I stayed here, Xander." Her eyes met his in silent acknowledgement. "Do you?"

The door closed behind her and Xander stared at it for a long moment until the burning in his eyes blurred it and the roaring in his ears screamed at him to call her back. But he stood there in the empty apartment, with the burning in his eyes and feeling hollowness beyond despair when he realized he didn't even have the courage to cry.

 

Xander let himself into the Summers' house later that night. He'd ignored Willow's phone calls all day, finally answering to tell her to leave it alone for a while, only to find Giles at the other end, requesting his presence at yet another post-Slayer Scooby summit. His attempts to bow out with references to finding someone else to pun badly and go for pizza had been met by Giles's unyielding response that he was needed. Something was up. Again.

He walked toward the living room, finding Giles standing in the center of the room, Tara and Willow on the couch with Dawn sitting at their feet and the Buffybot standing behind Giles with her arms crossed, mimicking Buffy's take charge pose.

Xander stepped into the room, receiving matching looks of concern from Willow and Dawn while Tara's eyes almost swallowed her face as they radiated quiet distress.

Xander groaned inwardly. He couldn't take an entire evening of this –- all of them rushing to soothe with quiet voices and soft, squeezing girl hugs. Willow and Dawn thrusting the blame onto Anya and then comforting him for being the world's biggest jerk.

Willow was rising from her seat, her lips trembling in full-blown empathy mode and Xander shook his head slightly, knowing he'd break if she so much as touched him. She sank back down with a concerned frown, her hand automatically seeking Tara's.

Xander turned to face Giles. "So what's up?" he asked, turning the attention back to the center of the room.

Giles nodded, tapping the stem of his glasses against his lip before sliding them back into place. "As you know, I've mentioned the possibility of returning to England, now that Buffy is…gone," he said quietly, with a tender look toward Dawn.

Xander wondered how long they would go on saying it like that, with the hesitant pause and then the vaguest euphemism possible. Gone. No longer with us. Passed from this existence. How long until they could say, 'Now that Buffy is dead and life sucks…?' He closed his eyes briefly and then turned his attention back to Giles.

"I've been in contact with the Council and, well, you know how much of a muck they enjoy making even the most ordinary of circumstances, so it's only been recently that we've been able to reach an agreement. I'm going back to England where I shall remain…indefinitely."

Xander snorted, dropping his head and shaking it in bemused disgust.

Willow was there ahead of him, though, leaping in with, "What? When?"

Giles turned to look at her and Willow continued, "I mean, yeah, I knew you'd said it was a possibility, but I always thought that was just the…shock speaking, and once you had a chance to get used to the idea of, well, not being a Watcher, anymore, we'd just kind of go on. Figure something else out."

"I've done what I was assigned to do, Willow. There's no reason for me to stay in Sunnydale any longer."

There was a moment of silence that was filled by Dawn's quiet sniffles as Tara reached down, running her fingers through the younger girl's hair as she looked up at Giles. "Will they…will they give you a n-new assignment?"

"No," Giles said, crossing his arms and studying the carpet pattern for a moment until he looked up to meet their eyes. "And I won't ask for one. Faith is, of course, the current Slayer and until her rehabilitation, if one can be hoped for, or her death, she remains the Slayer, albeit inactive and unable to fulfill her duties." Giles paused for a moment. "That's another reason I'm going back. To act as counsel as we attempt to decide the future of the Slayer line and what, if any…action we should take."

That statement hadn't quite sunk in when Xander laughed suddenly. "So, let me get this straight. You're leaving an active Hellmouth in the care of two untrained witches, an abandoned teenage girl with mystical powers we don't even understand and a carpenter with commitment issues? Sound plan, British guy. The Queen must be proud."

"And there's me," the Buffybot spoke up suddenly, "with all-slaying action and an ingrained desire to send forth the forces of darkness from the face of the earth," she finished with a wide smile.

"Oh, that's right," Xander said nodding in false relief, "and the oddly speaking robot who gets lost in her own backyard. Sorry I questioned the reasoning."

"Xander!" Dawn gasped in a hurt voice, looking between him and Giles.

"_Hey_," Willow said, with a censoring look at Xander, before she turned back to Giles. "But, I can't say I totally disagree with Xander here. How are we supposed to handle this by ourselves, without a Slayer? A few vamps, yeah," she said, gesturing among them, "but something like the Master…or Glory? We've barely averted the occasional apocalypse, even _with_ Buffy."

Giles sighed, looking toward a grim faced Xander before turning back to Willow's wide, frightened gaze. "Have you noticed that since Buffy closed the portal we've seen a decrease in demonic activity?"

Willow frowned in concentration for a moment, turning toward Tara who nodded back slowly.

"Yeah," Willow said, shrugging lightly, "but it's summer. It's always slower in summer. You know, kind of a yearly break from all the wacky hell-raising. Why? Are you saying that this time it's different? Something else?"

"The Hellmouth, as you know, has its own energy that draws the demons to it," they all nodded at him impatiently, and Giles cleared his throat and continued, "Buffy's arrival in Sunnydale changed that energy. What had once been a haunt, a sort of feeding place for demons, took on a deeper quality, the Slayer's own inherent mystical abilities acting as sort of a focal point for that energy, not only drawing demonic presence, but helping to create it."

"Did Buffy know that?" Dawn asked in a horrified voice.

"No," Giles said, "how could I tell her that the very act of her being called was exacerbating the evil she was born to combat?"

"So, it's like a paradox," Willow said slowly. "The Hellmouth was using the Slayer's power to recreate itself? That's…"

"…fucked up," Xander finished with an apologetic look at Dawn. "Okay, so, no Slayer – no apocalypse? I'm sure Buffy would have liked to have known that a long time ago."

"But…no apocalypse, no really Big Bad, so no reason we shouldn't be able to handle it," Willow said.

"Or any reason why we should still have to," Xander said under his breath.

"And, there's always Spike," Giles added, "not our most trusted ally, to be sure, but still a worthy…."

"Oh, come on, Giles," Xander said impatiently. "How long do you think we can really count on Spike to fight the good fight, now that Buffy's not here to impress?"

"I think we all may have…misjudged Spike's commitment to Buffy," Giles said tiredly, "and with the chip, I think we have reason to believe that his reliance on our goodwill will continue. In any case, I'd hate to think of leaving you all here without someone like him on your side."

"So don't go," Xander said shortly. Giles started to explain again, and Xander held his hand up. "Look, guys, I can't right now, okay? I just need to…"

"Xander," Giles interrupted softly. "There's something else you should know." Xander stopped, looking back at him. "I had intended to offer Anya a partnership in the shop and leave it under her management when I left. However, after she tendered her resignation and explained her desire to leave…" Xander chewed the inside of his cheek, waiting for Giles to arrive at his point. "She's coming back with me. To England," Giles finished.

Xander felt his body flush and there was a sharp ringing in his ears, and then suddenly he found himself with his fists clenched in Giles's shirt collar, Dawn crying and tugging at his arms as Willow tried to force herself between them, commanding him to stop.

"Xander!" Giles said forcefully, pushing him away.

"How long?" Xander choked out, hearing Dawn's strangled sobs behind him, Tara's quiet gasps and Willow fending off excited questions from the 'Bot. "When she started working for you? Since Buffy died? Couldn't have one hot little blonde, so you'd take another?"

"Never," Giles bit out, advancing on Xander until they stood face to face, "and, if you will recall, up until yesterday she was your blissfully happy future fiancée. She wanted to leave. I was leaving. I think you know better than to make either of those insinuations."

They stared at each other for a moment longer, Xander discovering fury in the steel depths of Giles's eyes that had never before been directed at him. He gently shook off Dawn and Willow's hands and turned away.

"Whatever," he said finally, walking toward the door. "Whatever she wants. I can't…I need to get out." He reached the door, looking back at them, "Look, I'll do whatever you decide. It doesn't matter."

"Xander, wait -– where are you going?" Willow asked, her eyes brimming with tears.

"To patrol," he said shortly as he opened the door.

"Take a stake!" the 'Bot called cheerfully, tossing him one.

 

Xander struggled beneath the arm of the particularly foul smelling vamp holding him in a headlock, trying to juggle his stake into position and failing miserably. He took a deep breath and went limp, surprising the vampire into loosening its grip as Xander dropped to the ground and thrust his stake up, catching the vamp in mid-leap as it lunged toward him. He stood up, brushing the dust off of his clothes.

He really hadn't had any intention of going on patrol; it had just seemed like the excuse least likely to encourage discussion when he'd left. It wasn't the first time he'd gone on patrol alone, although he'd usually had Anya as back-up, which was in essence going on patrol alone, except for the always helpful cries of, 'Xander, look out!' as a vamp came at his back.

He heard a soft whump behind him and took a minute to appreciate the irony, before turning to face his inevitable death and seeing…Spike, emerging from a falling cloud of vamp dust. The kinder, gentler vampire was arched gracefully, his stake still outthrust, his duster in mid-swirl. Xander had a brief flash of irritation at Spike's gracefulness in the fight, compared to his own one-arm-covering-face-repeat-stabby-motion moves.

Spike pocketed his stake, smirking at Xander. "Not fair to have a good time without me, Harris."

"You weren't invited," Xander said shortly, shoving his own stake into his back pocket.

Spike glanced around the cemetery. "Then don't hold the party in my backyard," he said, leaning back against a grave marker and lighting a cigarette.

Xander shrugged and started back toward the gate, only to turn in irritated surprise as he heard Spike fall into step next to him. "What are you doing?"

"Escortin' you back safely to the rest of the Caped Crusaders," Spike said as he searched the darkness ahead of them for the others.

"They're not here," Xander said. He increased his speed and walked around several headstones in an attempt to give Spike the brush off.

"Ah, so they aren't," Spike said, gracefully leaping a three-foot high monument to catch up with Xander. "We can have that awkward 'evening after' talk, then."

"I thought it never happened," Xander said with a glare.

"What –- you getting tanked and trying to get me to harmonize on '70s radio classics? Sorry, mate, that one's burned into my retinas. You practically crawling into my lap and pursing those blood-red lips at me like the rebound from hell? Nope, never happened." Spike stopped, his eyes focusing on Xander's lips and then rising slyly up to meet Xander's furious gaze. "Unless you want it to," he said with a dark chuckle.

"What the hell are you doing, Spike?" Xander asked, shoving the vampire away from him and watching with quiet joy as the other man stumbled back into a headstone, and then fell over it with a marked lack of grace.

Spike leapt to his feet, tossing his bent cigarette away. "What the hell's gotten into you, Harris? Patrolling alone, no witches whispering spells or Watcher slinging arrows to save your arse?" Spike grinned suddenly, nastily. "Demon girl wouldn't take you back, eh? So, what? You decided to come out here and end it all, offer yourself up to the dark creatures of the night? Well, here I am," he purred, opening his arms wide. "Ready to lay you over the sacrificial stone."

Xander stared at him and suddenly little hints started to drop into place, flashes of memory suddenly painting a picture he should have put together long ago. "Last night at the grave…you weren't there because of Buffy. You were following me."

Spike dropped his arms, backing away. "Was not."

Xander nodded and edged closer to him. "Yes, you were and it wasn't the first time. You've been riding shotgun on me during patrol, showing up at the girls' house every time I do, offering to follow Anya and me home…I thought it was because you were, I don't know, trying to be some kind of undead protector. Trying to be my friend. But it wasn't. Buffy's gone – so no obsession anymore, right? So you just decided to change targets? And it's _me_?"

Xander stopped, inches away from Spike, his chest heaving with anger and disgust and something so dark he didn't want to look at it too closely. "Why not Willow? Or Tara? Or…oh, my God, all those times we left Dawn alone with you…"

Spike was suddenly right in Xander's face, feeling a warning buzz from the chip and easing off into a still menacing but more distant stance. "Don't," Spike growled. "I don't care what it does to me, Harris, but I will rip your filthy tongue out if you say that I would - ever - do anything to the Bit." Spike stared into Xander's eyes for a few tense moments and then stepped back, patting down his coat for cigarettes.

Xander swallowed hard, anger squirming sickly in his gut.

Spike calmly lit up and blew a stream a smoke at him. "And the witches? Couldn't get between them if I tried." Spiked smirked, inhaling deeply again, "Although that's an idea that has a certain…charm."

"And this is…what?" Xander asked, finally deciding that this was his cosmic payback for Anya. Giles leaving. Learning that Buffy was the unwitting cause of every apocalypse. And suddenly being on the receiving end of stalker Spike. "You're gonna start making up excuses to drag me out on patrol? Build a Xander 'bot to…okay, not going there. This is…I know you're evil incarnate, Spike, but if you tell me this is all a big joke, we'll just both walk out of here, okay? I can't take this right now. And you have no idea how much I mean that."

Spike said nothing, just looked at him over the stream of smoke curling from his lips. Xander stared back, and then decided this was it. He was out. The tower was deserted; the princess didn't need a white knight anymore. He was cutting his ties and getting out, starting right here.

"Well, you know what, Spike?" he said softly, his tone deep and dangerous. "I've got a tree in front of my apartment, too. Gonna find butts under it every night? Find you lurking in the darkness every time I drive up?" He sneered at Spike's answering glare as he eased closer to the vampire.

"Buffy never wanted what you have to offer, so why would I be any different?" He kept moving forward, forcing Spike back into the side of a mausoleum. "Buffy was the Slayer, but for all of her strength, she was still just a girl. She wanted romance and dreams, the mysterious stranger with the heart of gold. And we both know what you wanted."

Spike's arm shot out, catching Xander in the center of the chest and holding him back. 

Xander grasped Spike's wrist, wrenching his arm up to slam against the marble behind him, the cigarette dropping from the vampire's grasp. "But I'm not Buffy, Spike," Xander said, still in that low, dangerous voice. "I'm not going to cringe and blush because a vampire has the hots for me."

Spike's tongue flicked over his lips, muscles in his arms and chest contracting as he metered his strength between holding Xander at bay and avoiding causing any real pain. "Know you think you're not afraid of me anymore, Harris," he scoffed.   
"Think the chip won't allow me do anything but make a run for it, that it?" Spike glanced down at the narrowing distance between their bodies.

Xander's lips twitched as he neutralized Spike with the grasp of one fist, bodies tight and controlled as Spike made no move to run anything but his mouth. "I make a run for it," Spikes eyes on Xander's, "and you don't have to make a move, Harris." Spike's teeth, illusion of narrowed canines in the moonlight, caught in the fullest part of his lower lip as he nodded. "No Slayer to run from..." Xander's hand on Spike's wrist tightened at the mention of Buffy. "Just an angry, hurting _boy_..." Spike's arched back, the swaying leather of his belt, the cold metal of its buckle, the length of Xander's thigh, "Who's more bravado than balls."

The sudden dirty rattle of a laugh, ripe with both anger and delight, shocked even Xander as it shuddered from his chest. "Not a boy, Spike, I'm a man, and sometimes men just…fuck," Xander finished, lunging forward and crushing his lips to Spike's, taking advantage of the vampire's sharp gasp to thrust his tongue into the coolness of Spike's mouth. His free hand reached up and grasped Spike's jaw, holding him there as he deepened the kiss, their mouths diving again and again in a way that was harder, hotter than anything Xander had expected from this little experiment in control.

Xander squeezed his eyes shut, his hand running up Spike's cheek to clench in the brittle, yet somehow soft, blond hair. Pulling Spike's lips closer, he gave all of his pain and anger over to this kiss. Taking control, for once, not accepting anything on Spike's terms and finding something he hadn't known was lost in the primal slide of his tongue against the reciprocating thrust of Spike's.

He gasped for air in Spike's mouth, moaning a little at that show of human weakness, then getting some of his own back as he felt Spike give an answering groan, the hand that Xander still held pinned tightening on his. Spike's body arched against him again, and he felt a tight hardness press into his own, causing them to grind desperately together for a moment until Xander raised his head, released Spike's wrist and stepped back to stare into the vampire's dazed face, the lips wet and parted, gasping uselessly as he stared at Xander.

Xander raised a hand to his mouth, brushing the back of it against his own wet lips. "Be careful who you put on a pedestal, Spike," he said. "You might find they're not as deserving as you thought."

He walked away, leaving Spike glaring after him with a mixture of shock and dawning respect. Spike stood up, touching his mouth gingerly as Xander walk away without a single look back.

Leather rustled as Spike straightened his jacket and picked up the cigarette that still smoldered on the ground. He took a deep drag and released the smoke with a satisfied sneer. "Not the way to discourage a vampire, mate."


	6. Chapter 6

Xander made it home before the shaking started. He'd barely been able to get the key in the lock to open the door and now beer was sloshing over his hand as he raised the bottle to his lips. He closed his eyes and rubbed the cold bottle over his hot forehead, trying to get a coherent thought out of the constant "what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck," racing through his mind.

He walked into the living room and dropped onto the couch, letting his legs sprawl out as he propped the beer bottle between them. He'd wanted to wipe that knowing smirk off of Spike's face and he'd succeeded…by sucking it off. He exhaled harshly as he had a quick flash of his hand trying to tangle into harsh, gelled hair, his tongue thrusting into a mouth that wasn't warm but still sent heat spiraling to the pit of his stomach. The tip of Spike's tongue rubbing against the underside of his, teasing him, letting Xander set the rules but still proving whose game they were playing.

Sometimes men just fuck. God, had he really said that? Well, it had sounded cool in his head. Actually, it had sounded cool coming out of his mouth, like finally being able to deliver the perfect comeback in the heat of the moment instead thinking of it later, after you'd slunk home in defeat.

But he was just so goddamn tired of seeing that superior, 'you know you want it' look, like he wasn't just supposed to eagerly jump the body it was attached to, but bow down in babbling worship to the knowledge he was the recipient of said look. Cordelia. Faith. Hell, even virginal, pre-gay now Willow had known she was in the power place with him.

And Anya, well, she hadn't been quite so Mistress of Her Domain with him, at first, but even back then, she had known he was helpless in the face of 'naked chick with fist full of black latex.'

When had he ever gotten to be the one to drop the look? Play the predator, the seducer, be the man? Even Buffy, after all of his lovesick attempts with cheap jewelry and Ken and Barbie, 'Wanna go to the dance?' lines, had been the one grinding her ass into his crotch, making the rules and then stopping the play the second she scored her point against Angel.

He choked on the swallow of beer, burning the inside of his nose and ending up doubled over in a clumsy, jerky coughing fit. Not thinking about Buffy and grinding. Or Anya and how many multi-colored condoms it took to get over a crush. Which left his little power play with Spike, and that way be madness.

So. Sitting. Drinking. Not thinking. And why the hell was he more freaked out that he'd try to out-badass the Big Bad than suffering total brain-babble overload over guy! and vamp! and the insane Hellmouth logic of How to Get Rid of Your Immortal Stalker in Five Easy Tongue Moves.

Yeah, I showed him. I'm dark and dangerous and not to be the object of some demented demon's purity complex. I'm not some…dude in distress, waiting on my terrace for my dark prince in creaking leather to rescue me with his cool hair and his slippery, slidey smartass tongue. I was in control, hard and firm and…Xander groaned, tugging at his pants leg to ease the pressure on his fly…and I am not thinking about this!

He picked up the remote and turned the stereo on, hitting the first programmed radio station button.

_You let me violate you. You let me desecrate you…_

No. Click.

_Dressed me up in women's clothes, messed around with gender roles, line my eyes and call me pretty…_

Huh-uh. Click.

_But wherever I have gone, I was sure to find myself there -- you can run all your life but not go anywhere…_

Oh, well that's perfect. Click.

_Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance, and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance...I hope you dance..._

And, okay, I don't even know what that one means. Click.

Xander's hand tightened on the beer bottle and then slid up the neck slickly as his head fell back against the couch. Giving in, he pressed the hard glass against the throbbing heat between his legs. One hand, cold and wet, popped the buttons on his jeans and then slid inside, making him gasp and tense as its coolness touched hard, overheated skin. Cold hands, warm cock…

Help me. It's your sex I can smell. Help me. You make me perfect. Help me become somebody else.

 

Spike lit another cigarette, cupping his hand tightly to make sure the glow wasn't visible from the street. He was certain that Harris was in there, he could see shadows move once in a while, like someone was going from room to room or maybe just pacing slowly in mad circles.

A shadow crossed again in front of the window and Spike eased back into the cover of the overhanging branches, slipping the glowing tip of the cigarette behind his back. He'd started to follow Xander from the cemetery, and then changed direction and headed over to the Summers' house, determined to find out what the hell kind of spell Red had put on the boy to make him channel his inner Angelus.

He'd walked into a house divided, Willow wavering from tears to anger as the Watcher defended his decision to go back to England, the blonde witch trying to calm things down and Dawn just looking freaked. Seems Xander had been there earlier, lost his shit and took off looking to kill something.

And he found me. Spike snorted, raising the cigarette to his lips again. Insert staking innuendo here. So, Rupert's heading off to the mother country and leaving the kiddies to mind the family business. And demon girl's following after him – that's…interesting.

Spike studied tip of his cigarette, wondering again what he was doing out here. He'd just come to make sure Harris had made it home. No telling what kind of nasties he would have attracted, and decided to take on, state that he was in. Not following him or anything. Hadn't been – that'd all been in Harris' over-active and always amusing imagination.

Yeah, he'd decided to have a little fun about that first kiss. He'd figured it wasn't something that would ever happen again, and if he couldn't get his end off one way, taking the piss would be almost as good. But that second kiss…oh, fuck me, he thought, tossing the cigarette away in disgust, and then looking around carefully before bending down to snuff it out and slip into his pocket. No sense in proving the git right.

He glared up at Xander's apartment window. He wasn't bloody doing this again. At first it had been vaguely comforting. Standing, smoking, watching. Old habits, familiar haunts.

Observing the boy patrol this summer, seeing that wild-eyed look that had replaced the mixture of fear and determination he'd always worn. Listening to the silence between him and Anyanka when he'd walked them home. The grim resolve on the boy's face while he played groundskeeper to a hero's grave.

The wonder, shame and scared-shitlessness that had underscored his drunken laughter. The same feelings that had flavored that kiss tonight. Finding a bit of that darkness within. Spike closed his eyes, letting Xander's words come back to him. Don't want you on a pedestal, mate. His body shuddered lightly with memory Xander's mouth on his. You can't change the world on the strength of one kiss. He opened his eyes, looked up at the now darkened windows above him one last time before he stepped off the walkway, heading back into the darkness.

 

The screaming woke Xander. White Knight or not, five years of ingrained responses had him out of bed, on his feet and searching the near darkness for weapons. His hand clenching on an axe handle, his heart pounding and his breath whistling in his throat, he found the source of the unholy noise. The clock-radio. The screaming was Axl Rose. It was time to get ready for work. Fuck.

Xander dropped back down on the bed, letting the axe fall to the floor as he rubbed his hand down his face and let his heart slow from the combination of waking to the howls of hell – or at least their 80s rock equivalent – ripping him from that dream.

One week. Almost one week since Anya and Spike and Giles. One week since he'd sat in the living room -– the very living room where, a few hours earlier, his girlfriend had walked out for the last time –- and had one of the most powerful orgasms of his life. An orgasm that left him shaky and sweaty and with cottonmouth that had nothing do with residual hangover effects.

One week of going to work, avoiding anything with Scooby overtones or that held the possibility of seeing demons, former or otherwise. Not that it mattered, since his dreams were filled with images of blue-eyed devils with pouty lips whispering obscene promises as they ground down on his. One week of jerking off silently in the shower, if he hadn't already woken up with his shorts sticking to him and a gasp on his lips.

Sober faced, he pushed himself up off the bed and walked toward the shower, telling his hands to keep to themselves this time. He gave up that battle even before he had his boxers down his thighs.

An extra long shower and a stern self-talking to later, he was toweling off and digging through his closet for a clean t-shirt when the phone rang. A disturbing event at 6:00 a.m., even in a non-demon populated world.

"Hello?"

"Xander?"

Great. Willow.

"Yeah?"

"Sorry to call so early, but, um…it's Saturday."

"Uh-huh?"

"Well, today is," he heard her clear her throat nervously. "We're taking Giles and, um, Anya to the airport." She waited, but Xander didn't say anything. "So I thought you could meet us over here around 7:00, and we'd all go together…?"

"Not going, Will." His hand tightened on the receiver and he started counting the number of sentences he'd have to go through before he could end this call.

"Xander…you're not going to say goodbye? It's Giles."

He heard the hurt, surprise and disappointment in her voice and sighed. "Willow –- what I think about Giles going back to England…trust me, he doesn't want to hear. And I can't deal right now with…Anya and I have said it all. It would just be wrong to do it again."

"Xander, I don't think that's true. You should see how…"

"Anyway," he cut in, feeling petty and mean for doing it, "I have to work today."

"But…it's Saturday."

"And you know I work extra shifts on Saturdays," he said patiently.

"But, just this once…"

"Willow. Love ya, but no. Sorry. Not going to argue about this. Tell Giles," he stopped as he tried to sum up five years in a few words. Five years of memories, not all of which had to with life saving and demon killing. "Tell him I said thanks and good luck."

There was silence from Willow's end and then a soft, "Okay. But if you change your mind?"

"I'll let you know."

They said nothing for a moment and then Willow ended the call with a quiet goodbye. Xander pressed the end button and stood there, wondering when he was going to stop feeling like the asshole king of the world.

He dropped the phone onto the bed and then reached into the closet, yanking a shirt off the hanger and then stopping when he realized it what it was. Willow's Sunnydale t-shirt. He wadded it into his hands and then let it fall to the floor. Damn it.

 

"Hey."

Giles looked back at him, a bag in his hand and a look of cautious surprise on his face. "Xander." Giles stepped back a little, letting him into the apartment. "I thought you were Willow and the girls."

"Nope. Just me." Xander rubbed his hands together, looking around the bare apartment. The sofa and bookshelves were still there, but the books, the albums, the Scotch, everything that had made it Giles, was gone.

Xander felt Giles' eyes on him, watching him as he looked around the emptied room. When he turned to look, however, a bland look slipped into place and Giles smiled, saying, "Willow and Tara are arranging for some of the larger items to be held in storage. It looks rather strange, doesn't it? Larger."

"Well, that's because it's not full of kids and pizza boxes," Xander said with a half-smile. "Good times. Thanksgiving -– oh wait, Indians and syphilis. Uh, Halloween? Tiny demons and chocolate?"

Giles nodded, his smile widening a bit. "Spike chained in the bathtub, caterwauling for his telly and cup of blood."

The smile slid from Xander's face. "Yeah. Good times."

"Xander," Giles sighed as he dropped his bag to the floor. "I know you're not in total agreement with my decision…"

"Listen, Giles," he dropped his head, staring at his work boots for a moment. "No, I'm not." He raised his eyes, meeting Giles's calm and attentive gaze. "I think you're making a huge mistake. I know that without Buffy here, you don't think there's any reason for you to stay." Xander exhaled slowly, his hands settling on his hips and clenching tightly. "And that really pisses me off. The Hellmouth, end of the world not a problem, whatever," he said, waving off Giles' attempt at an answer. "But that you would leave just because Buffy isn't here?"

"I really think that you and Willow have it in you, and are ready to handle this, Xander." Giles shook his head, reaching to slide his glasses up and rub tiredly at his eyes. "There isn't really anything left for me to teach you."

"I'm not talking about the mission, Giles. I'm talking about five years of going to you with our problems and our successes, or lack of, and that fact that you've somehow forgotten that there were three of us."

Giles looked back at him for a moment, a look of shock and hurt spreading over his face. "That's what you think? That I'm leaving because I don't care about the rest of you? Xander, you have to know how much you and Willow, as well as Dawn, have meant to me. I'm not leaving you. I'm leaving because I can't stay here and face this every day. The fact that everything I've ever worked for is gone. This isn't my fight any longer."

"But it's still ours?"

"Oh, dear Lord," Giles said softly, reaching out to Xander and then dropping his hand. "I'm sorry, Xander, so terribly sorry. I never even asked, I just assumed…" His hand reached out again, this time taking Xander's arm gently. "Of course I can't leave here just expecting you to take on responsibility you were never meant to face. I'll talk to the Council," he said, nodding decisively, "surely there's something we can…"

"Giles." Xander reached up, lightly grasping the hand on his arm. "It's all right. That's just something I'm, ah, working through right now. Willow will take care of it. And I'll take care of her."

Giles laughed shortly, giving Xander's arm one last squeeze and then stepping back. "You're letting me off rather lightly there."

Xander smiled sadly. "You didn't agree to stay."

He started to turn toward the door, and then looked back, finding his mouth suddenly dry. "Giles, I, uh, look, it still sucks that you're leaving, and I'm retaining the right to stay pissed off about it, but I just want you to know…" Xander trailed off, shaking his head as could find nothing, not even some babbling nonsense, to express what he felt.

Giles smiled at him gently. "I understand not being able to find the words, Xander. It's enough that you want to say them."

Xander nodded, his lips quirking in the first real smile he'd had in days. He turned, his hand reaching for the door, and then he was rushing back over and grabbing Giles in a rough hug. "Take care of her," he said hoarsely, pulling away and walking out of the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Closer" by NIN  
> "Laid" by James  
> "Ball and Chain" by Social Distortion  
> "I Hope You Dance" by LeAnn Womack


	7. Chapter 7

Xander slammed his apartment door behind him, heard it bounce against the door jam and turned and slammed it again. That felt really good, so he jerked it open and slammed it one more time. From across the hall he heard faintly, “Knock it off, asshole!”

“Knock yourself off, _asshole_,” he answered back to his empty apartment, and then looked around nervously, as if the empty pizza boxes, beer bottles and piles of dirty white socks were going to mock his passive aggressive comebacks.

He leaned over and ripped at the laces on his work boots, yanking them off and tossing them and the latest in a long line of grimey socks into a pile with their brethren. He quickly tore at his t-shirt, tossing it to land over a lamp, as he started clawing at his chest. God, he felt like he’d stripped naked and rolled in insulation, not just hauled rolls of it around all day. Hell, even his ass itched, and he didn’t remember utilizing it in any of the grunt work he’d volunteered to do today. He tried to remember that he was paid really well for that grunt work, but that didn’t seem to matter when he felt like ripping his skin off to stop the itchy burning.

He shouldn’t have stopped by to see the girls first. He should have just come home and scratched, and maybe it wouldn’t have gotten this bad. But he knew if he didn’t tell Willow that he was going to wait until tomorrow morning to mow, she’d be standing on the porch watching for him for hours and then doing that freaky telepathy shit to get into his head, and it would probably be right at the moment he was groaning the name of the Evil Undead in the shower and then there would be mental blushing and stammering and _ye gods_, he itched!

He shoved his jeans off and his boxers went the way of the t-shirt, casting the room into a gloom that fit his mood and made the shriveled pizza slices and puddles of beer look somehow artsy. He felt a little better without anything next to his skin, and indulged in a full body scratch that had him throwing his head back and moaning a little at the feeling.

You’d think after Anya left, his penis would have decided to take a well deserved vacation, but it seemed to have found new inspiration. _And we’re not thinking about that inspiration_, he said to himself as he went to turn the shower on and jumped beneath the spray, not waiting for it to heat up. This one was about cleanliness, not getting stickier. He groaned a little, his eyelashes fluttering in relief as he felt the gritty itchiness wash off.

He used extra shower gel, getting a good lather going and then frowning as the traitor between his legs tried to make its agenda known. “No,” he said sternly and then rinsed, wondering if the definition of insanity wasn’t dumping your beautiful, sexy girlfriend or fantasizing about the person who headed up your own personal shit list, but talking to your own genitals. _Well, that’s one I won’t be going to Willow with_, he thought, grabbing a towel and giving himself a cursory drying.

Right now he was just going to enjoy being home and making the most of what was left of a spectacularly shitty day. He slipped into a pair of drawstring pants and headed back into the living room. At least he was clean, a feeling he’d found himself enjoying more and more lately. It seemed all he’d done in the past week was work, shower, eat, shower, sleep, shower. _And too much of this_, he thought, looking down at the beer he unthinkingly pulled out of the refrigerator. One or two a couple of nights a week after work was one thing, yeah, but…he looked around the apartment, realizing he’d begun building a virtual Stonehenge of beer bottles.

He set the bottle, unopened, on the end table and dropped down on the couch. Okay. So no fizzy beverages. Food would be good, but the thought of ordering pizza or Chinese again made his stomach roll. Why didn’t McDonald’s deliver? They were missing out on a _goldmine_.

He ran his fingers through his hair and was considering how big of a pain in the ass it would be to run grab some tacos, when he saw it. He turned his head slightly, looking out onto the darkened balcony. At first he couldn’t see anything but darkness and his own reflection in the glass, and then there it was – a red glow that brightened momentarily and then dimmed.

Xander jumped up from the couch, his bare feet landing squarely in the open pizza box peeking out from under the coffee table. He stumbled over it and jerked open the patio door, the street lights illuminating the leather clad back leaning against the railing, a waft of smoke rising above an unnaturally blond head.

“Spike,” Xander said, letting all of his frustration, ashamed excitement and disgust at feeling a dried black olive stuck between his toes color the word.

“Hello, lover,” Spike said, turning with a sultry head tilt. He watched Xander stare back at him, the edges of the boy’s full lips twitching. “What?” Spike asked, frowning, the mood thrown.

“I’m sorry,” Xander said, spreading his hands. “_Lov-ah_. I don’t know whether to punch you or point and laugh.”

Spike pitched his cigarette over the balcony railing and started toward Xander, his head lowered and fists clenched. Momentarily thrown by the dangerous vibe Spike was giving off, Xander jumped back into the apartment, grasping the doorframe to steady himself as the beyond pissed off vampire stopped just short of the barrier.

Seeing Spike stop just in time to avoid being humiliated by an invisible smack down, Xander snickered. “Well, _this_ could be fun.” He reached a hand through the doorway, poking Spike in the middle of the chest and then jerking his arm back. Spike lunged for him, slapped his hand against the barrier and jumped back with a curse, causing Xander to laugh harder.

“Oh, yeah, this has all kinds of possibilities,” he said, his eyes gleaming with an evil joy. He was just getting ready to see if he could mess up Spike’s hair without sending the vampire into chip-overload, when Spike was suddenly against the barrier, so close their lips were almost brushing, but separated by something Xander couldn’t see or feel.

“Don’t try it, Harris.” The voice was a low growl, and the eyes said he was way beyond kidding.

The laughter left Xander’s face and he looked at Spike for a moment, putting more space between them. “Then go home, Spike.”

“Invite me in.”

Xander’s eyes widened, and then he laughed again, shaking his head. “Uh, _no_.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t wake up stupid this morning.”

“Huh. Whole new world, was it?”

Xander backed up, closing the door in Spike’s face. “Say goodnight, Spike.”

“Harris – fuck. Xander, you’re bloody brilliant, alright? Christ.” Spike sighed, reaching a hand up to stop in front of the closing door. “Look, I just want to talk for a bit, and then I’ll leave.”

“Talk about what?” Xander asked, the door half-closed so that he could just make out the pale gleam of Spike’s hair and one deceptively innocent blue eye.

“Well, for starters, how about you explain what that power trip in the cemetery was all about.”

Xander kept the door cracked and gave Spike a weary look. “Okay, obsessive, much? That was like a week ago. Move on, Spike.”

“We kissed, Xander,” Spike’s voice was low, and his eye never left Xander’s face. “Well, you kissed me, anyway. I was just trying to keep from biting your sodding tongue off. Didn’t think it was worth the headache.”

“Right. And that was your _stake_ I felt grinding into my crotch? Oh, wait, it could have been your lighter…”

Spike thumped against the barrier again, sputtering. “My _lighter_…? Oh, you poncy little bastard.” Spike stopped, dropping his head against the barrier. “Harris. Invite me in.” He looked up, his eyes meeting Xander’s. “Please.”

Xander opened the door, looking back at him. “If you make me regret this, Spike…”

Spike looked up hopefully, grinning slightly as Xander sighed hugely, stepping back. “Come in, _Fangless_.”

Spike was halfway through the doorway before he looked back, glaring at the laws of mystical whos-its accepting that name.

“All right, Spike,” Xander said, walking back toward the couch. “I’ve had a shitty day, I’m hungry, I’m tired and kind of itchy. So say what you’ve got to say and get out.”

Spiked smiled slowly, rubbing his thumb against his lower lip. “Yeah, I uh, really enjoyed the floor show.”

Xander turned, seeing the pile of pink fuzzed clothes on the floor behind him. He groaned and looked back at the smirking vampire. “You sick fuck,” he sighed, dropping back down on the couch.

“So,” Spike said, clapping his hands together and grinning at Xander. “What would you like to talk about first? How much you’re dying to see a floor show of your own, or how you want to handle my stepping into old Rupert’s shoes as headmaster of the Scoobies?”

Xander stared up at him, his mind in the place of the naked Spike show, but his mouth still working independently of it. “You? Leader of the Scoobies? How the hell did you arrive at _that_?”

“Well, it’s obvious, innit?” Spike said, crossing his arms and looking down at Xander. “Red’s too unstable to do it, what with the occasionally wonky magic, and her pretty little bird couldn’t lead a litter of puppies and the Bit’s too young. And you’ve got that whole _Sybil_ thing going on right now, so naturally I figured…”

Xander got to his feet, crossing his own arms and suddenly remembering that he was shirtless. He crossed his arms tighter and sneered, “Spike, we wouldn’t follow you if you suddenly walked on water.”

Spike dropped his arms, stepping closer to Xander as his eyes narrowed and his voice lowered. “Well, I think you’ll change your mind, mate, the first time something comes up that your little witches can’t chant away. Trust me, there’ll come the day that you’ll wish I _was_ riding shotgun on your arse when you feel fangs jabbing into that hot little neck.”

“Why the hell are you even still _here_, Spike?” Xander said, his voice rising even as Spike’s had lowered. “She’s gone. She can’t see this…hero shit you’re trying to pull. What, you can’t be the Big Bad, so you’re gonna try for Chosen One? It doesn’t work like that, you arrogant ass. I’m not going to put the few people I have left in the hands of a self-involved, delusional vampire who wants to play the good guy.”

“And I’m not doin’ this for you _or_ her,” Spike said, his voice still low, steely, dangerous, as he moved ever closer, eyeing Xander’s defensive stance. “If you’d just stop and think for one fucking minute, you’d see you’re putting all of you in greater danger by not letting me -”

“Sell us out? Screw us over? Or get bored and get us killed?” Xander said, his arms rising to ward Spike off, even as he moved a little closer to the glaring vampire bearing down on him. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now, Spike, but I’ll be damned if I let…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Xander,” Spike said, his agitated breathing kicking in as Xander’s hair brushed his forehead. “Shut your gob and kiss me.”

“Fuck you,” Xander muttered as his hand jerked out and pulled Spike to him, his lips grinding down hotly onto a cool mouth as frighteningly strong hands gripped his arms and jerked him even closer. Xander flicked his tongue across Spike’s lips, earning him a gasp that allowed him to deepen the kiss, moaning as Spike’s hand left his arm and reached up to bury itself in his hair.

His bare chest was crushed against warm leather, and one leg thrust between Spike’s, rubbing against the growing hardness there as they both opened their mouths wider, demanding more from each other. Xander pulled back slightly, sucking Spike’s bottom lip into his mouth and nipping it lightly with his teeth. He took a shaky breath, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Spike’s, feeling the vampire shuddering against him.

“This is still a really bad idea,” Xander said quietly, his eyes closed.

Spike ran his hands down Xander’s bare back, bringing them together tightly as he slid his fingers into the waistband of Xander’s pants. “It’s about to get a whole lot worse,” he said, lowering his lips to Xander’s chest.


	8. Chapter 8

Xander felt Spike’s mouth ghost over his skin, the lips merely brushing over one side of his chest and then the other. Suddenly Spike lunged, his mouth fastening around Xander’s nipple, his lips and tongue and flicking, biting and sucking insistently, drawing it to a point.

Xander gasped, his hands sliding down from Spike’s shoulders to grip smooth leather clad arms. He felt the blunt edges of Spike’s teeth scrape slowly across his nipple and he bucked against him hard, feeling his erection, already at an impressive ‘full-impulse power’ immediately accelerate to an astonishing ‘warp 8.5.’

Spike braced himself as Xander thrust against him, feeling a strangled gasp shudder out of Xander's chest. He looked up to see Xander’s face burst into an embarrassed flush and followed the younger man’s eyes down to where Xander’s thin sleep pants were tenting between them. Spike quirked an eyebrow, “Definitely _not_ a lighter,” he muttered, pressing his lips back against Xander’s chest as his hand trailed down a trembling stomach to slide beneath the drawstring pants, filling his hand with hot, silky flesh.

Xander’s head thumped against Spike’s shoulder, his breath warm and damp against the cool skin of Spike’s neck. Spike felt Xander’s lips tease below his ear as he groaned, “Way better than I thought.”

“What’s that, pet?” Spike murmured as he lightly bit a trail between Xander’s pecs.

“The other night,” Xander said, his words muffled as he hotly mouthed the skin below Spike’s jaw, “I, uh, was drinking a beer and, well, I kind of made my hand cold and um, did this,” Xander thrust tightly in Spike’s slowly pumping hand, “and pretended it was you.”

Spike suddenly stilled against him and Xander raised his head to see the cords in Spike’s neck standing out, his jaw clenched and tight and his eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t move,” Spike gritted out.

“Wha…what’s the matter?” Xander asked, pressing closer to him in concern.

“_Don’t_!” Spike groaned, his hand tightening suddenly on Xander’s cock, his body tense and shaking. He drew a couple of ragged breaths, opening his eyes to see Xander staring at him with a mixture of rejection and worry. “That…what you just said,” he swallowed thickly, “give me a minute or this is about to be over. Get me, mate?”

Xander chuckled lightly, relieved. He teasingly pumped his hips into Spike’s hand, hearing the vampire mutter a curse and squeeze his hand tighter around Xander’s hard length.

“C’mon,” Spike said, giving him one last smooth stroke and then turning to lead him over to the couch. Spike stopped, noticing for the first time the bottles and cans and boxes that littered the table and most of the couch and floor. “Bloody hell, Xander, this is disgusting.”

“Says the man with skulls piled up around his bed.”

“That’s a very deliberate bit of ambience. This is just…filth.”

As Xander started to disagree, Spike sighed and stopped all argument with, “When you don’t have room to shag? It’s gone too far.”

Xander grinned and grabbed Spike’s hand, pulling him toward the bedroom. Xander backed into the room until his legs hit the edge of the bed. He tugged at Spike’s hand, pulling him closer. He reached up with the other and did something he’d been wanting do all week: he cupped Spike’s jaw, fitting his thumb into the hollow below the jutting cheekbone. As his thumb brushed back and forth he looked up into half-lidded blue eyes, swallowing hard.

This was _Spike_. Spike’s eyes raking him from head to foot, Spike’s fingers teasing down his stomach to his groin, Spike’s tongue darting out to wet those full, reddened lips. Xander felt the shaking start low in his belly and hovered fearfully on the edge of total freak out, and then he tightened his fingers on Spike’s, pulling that hard body flush against him. He reached up and pushed the duster off of Spike’s shoulders and then spun around and pushed Spike to the bed and fell on top of him.

Xander looked down into a flash of heat from Spike’s eyes, feeling rough denim-covered hardness grind hard against his own aching cock. _Hmm, likes the power games_, huh? Xander thought, grasping the hem of Spike’s t-shirt, raking it up and dropping his head to press rough kisses against Spike’s neck and chest, following the well muscled indentation down the center of Spike’s torso until he could delve his tongue into a shallow navel, feeling firm skin tighten under his lips.

He’d seen Spike without a shirt before, but he’d had to be satisfied with quick, darting glances and turning away before that too-knowing gaze could catch him staring. Taking advantage of this chance to just look, Xander spread his hands on Spike’s ribcage and let his eyes and tongue follow every arch, every curve.

Spike groaned under Xander’s lips and said, “Xander…pet, look, I know you want to experience the whole thing, try all 31 flavors, right? But I’ve been thinking about this,” he drew a deep shuddering breath, _all week…all summer…since the first time I ever bloody saw you…_ “for days and, oh, hell, Xander, I hope you don’t need hearts and flowers, because right now I think we both just need to get off, yeah?”

Spike wrapped his arms around Xander and rolled them over, standing to pull his shirt over head and ripped open the buttons of his jeans, shoving them down his legs and tearing his boots off. Naked, he looked back down at Xander, all that tanned skin framed by pale sheets, the eyes huge and dark, darting from Spike’s cock to his lips and back.

Spike dropped his hands to the waist of Xander’s pants and tugged, sliding them slowly down, smiling in appreciation as Xander’s cock sprang free, dark with blood and so hard the skin seemed almost shiny. Tossing the pants away, Spike slowly lowered himself back down, bracing his hands on either side of Xander’s broad shoulders, letting his thumbs reach out and rub soothingly at the hot skin.

He looked into eyes filled with want and fear and Xander’s heart was thudding through both of their chests, making him tremble with the force of Xander’s desire. “Shh,” Spike said quietly. “Not gonna do anything you don’t want. Just gonna make it good. Let me make it good, Xander.”

Spike lowered his head and bit at those full lips, bringing their lower bodies in contact, twisting his hips to allow his cock to drag up Xander’s in one slow move and then lifting away teasingly.

“Oh, my sweet fucking God,” Xander moaned, grabbing at Spike’s hips to pull him back. Spike muffled a laugh and thrust against Xander again, faster this time, feeling the slow sweet burning start as their flesh rubbed together.

Xander’s head fell back, stunned by the feeling of cock against cock, never expecting that skin so soft and hard at the same time could feel like this.

“Never knew about this, did you?” Spike whispered as he drew sharply on the skin of Xander’s chest, bringing the blood to the surface and marking him.

“N-no,” Xander stammered, bringing his knees up to clutch at Spike’s plunging hips. “Spike, oh, shit, I’m sorry, I think I’m gonna…”

“Don’t have to be the gentleman for me, Xander, the sooner you do, the sooner I, oh, God, love,” Spike gasped, feeling the hot rush hit his stomach and thighs as Xander arched against him, crying out. He thrust desperately against the shuddering body beneath him and then threw back his head with a deep groan as he came, his body jerking and tightening above Xander’s.

He fell against Xander’s chest, rubbing his hand absently at the sweat pooling on the smooth, warm skin and then looked up into Xander’s heavy-lidded and dazed eyes.

“So, ah, what do we do with this now?” Xander asked, gesturing between them.

Spike looked down at him, his lip curling up a bit. “I thought sometimes men just fuck.”

Xander laughed with a groan, reaching up to push his sweaty hair off his forehead. “Yeah, I might have been talking a little shit back there.”

“Huh,” Spike said, giving him a smirk that was decidedly less snarky than usual, “didn’t notice. Question is, I guess, what do you _want_ to do with this?”

Xander looked down at their bodies, still pressed together, pale skin against brown, dark curls tangling wetly, thighs trembling together slightly with aftershocks. This was always so easy in the movies; people either said thanks and walked away, or curled up together and whispered words they didn’t mean.

Not wanting to do either of those, Xander fell back on the one thing he’d been able to count on the last few days of endless confusion. “Shower?”

Spike said nothing and Xander carefully eased out from under him, leaning over to grab one of many damp towels off of the floor and using it to wipe at his stomach and thighs. He held it out to Spike, watching the pale fingers close on the dark cloth and then stood, walking toward the bathroom. “Coming?”

Spike rubbed the towel across his stomach, the muscles clenching as he felt the evidence that Xander had touched him, wanted him, wiping away. He stood, the towel dropping from his fingers as he heard the shower start and the quiet thuds of Xander stepping into it.

He walked quietly into the bathroom, stopping to stare as he realized that Xander had left the shower curtain slightly open for him to step inside. He looked at the soft, blurry outlines of Xander’s body visible through the sheer plastic and swallowed.

“Spike?” Xander’s voice rose above the sound of the water and it was a little shaky, uncertain.

“Yeah,” Spike said, starting slightly and then pushing back the curtain to get in.

Xander stood with his back to him, his head tipped up to the spray, his hair dark and curling wetly against his neck. Spike dropped his gaze and let his eyes travel up Xander from his firmly planted, high-arched feet, to strong calves, lightly brown and dusted with dark hair, to firm buttocks that were just a shade or two lighter than his tanned back and thighs. _There’s a story there_, Spike thought, raising a brow.

He watched the muscles in Xander’s back and arms contract as he washed. Xander glanced over his shoulder at him and said, “Well?”

“Er…what’s that?” Spike asked, dragging his eyes from Xander’s flexing ass and thighs.

“Here.” Xander handed him a bottle of pale green soap and Spike took it automatically, watching white foam swirl down the center of Xander’s chest and stomach to settle in dark hair and frame…

“Spike.”

“Yeah,” Spike said, his gaze snapping up to meet Xander’s grinning, if slightly pink, face.

Xander shook his head, turning back to rinse as Spike popped open the cap of the bottle in his hand, grimacing slightly as the scent of apples drifted up. He squeezed a bit into his palm, rubbing it across his chest and stomach, then letting his hand drift lower, smoothing the gel into his skin as he moved closer to Xander.

Letting his slick front slide against Xander’s back, his cock just nudging at the base of Xander’s spine, he wrapped his arms around the warm, wet body in front of him. He slid his hands across Xander’s sleek stomach and down to grip the hot, firm…

“Spike!” Xander leapt away from him, sliding against the slick bottom of the tub and catching himself on the soap dish. Spike jerked back, a hand shooting out to steady Xander.

“Gah!” Xander cried out as Spike’s wet, soap smooth hand slid from his hip to his inner thigh. “That’s not…”

Xander turned slightly, seeing Spike looking back at him, his head tilted, a small frown on his face.

Xander groaned. “_Why_ am I always trying to talk people out of having sex with me?” Spike’s frown deepened and Xander sighed. “That’s not what I had in mind,” he explained, turning to rinse the last of the soap off his body. “I just meant….I just didn’t want you sticking to my sheets in the morning.”

Spike reached out, running a finger slowly down the indention of Xander’s spine, feeling the muscles quiver beneath his hand. “So, I’m staying?” he asked, his voice deep and quiet.

Xander turned, smiling slightly. “Guess so.”

Spike nodded, moving so that Xander could edge past him and reach for a towel. Spike stepped beneath the shower long enough for most of the suds to wash away and then cut off the shower. He turned to see Xander wrapping a fluffy, pink towel around his hips, tucking it so that a stylized monogrammed “X” hovered right above his groin.

Spike snickered. “Thanks, love. Might’ve forgotten where to find it.”

Xander frowned at him, opening his mouth to question that, just as Spike reached out to pull a matching towel from the hook behind Xander.

“No!” Xander yelled as Spike raised the pink terrycloth to his face.

Spike looked back at him, confused at Xander’s horrified stare, and then glanced down, seeing the matching “A” monogrammed on the pink cloth in his hands. “Right,” Spike muttered, dropping the towel and shoving past Xander.

He walked back into the bedroom, angrily scooping his t-shirt up from the floor and struggling to pull it down over his wet skin with one hand as he dug for his jeans with the other.

“Spike,” Xander said, coming up behind him. “Look…I’m sorry I yelled. Here.” A hand reached in front of Spike’s chest, offering a towel, the black “X” pointed toward him.

Spike yanked it to him, mopping at his chest and stomach below the bunched t-shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Xander said again, quietly. “It’s just that...she took everything. That’s the only thing left that’s hers.”

Spike shot him a dark look as he dropped the towel and bent to jerk his jeans on. “Not the only thing.”

“Spike…I don’t want to do this.”

“Yeah, I got that the first time, mate.” Spike turned back to him, missing the way those dark eyes swept over the t-shirt that clung wetly to his chest, baring his stomach, the half-buttoned jeans framing a line of dark hair and the beginning of darker curls. “So, thanks for the shag, been lovely…”

“No,” Xander interrupted, stalking naked over to the bed and peeling back the sheet to slip inside. “I mean I’m not doing this; I’m not fighting with you.” He settled against the pillow, looking back at Spike who stood unmoving, silent and still half-dressed. “I’m tired of fighting. _Beyond_ fucking tired. I’m going to sleep. You can get in here with me and sleep, or you can go. But I’m not arguing about it with you.”

Spike looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed and shoved his jeans off again, wrestling the damp t-shirt over his head. He walked over to the bed, glaring at the small grin playing on Xander’s lips.

Spike grunted softly as he crawled over Xander. “You’re _not_ why I’m staying. You’ve seen my crypt. It’s worse than this dump.” He settled down on the other side of Xander, whipping the sheet over his hips and laying back, his arm resting over his eyes.

Xander lay flat on his back, his arms on top of the sheet and then he turned slightly toward Spike, jerking back as his foot brushed against a cool leg. He squirmed for a bit, trying to get comfortable, and then heard Spike give a frustrated hiss before he reached out to pull Xander to him.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Xander,” he said, sighing, as he slid one arm beneath Xander’s head and curved his body into him. “I just washed your come off of me. I think you can handle sleeping next to me.”

“Oh, well that’s nice and vague, Spike,” Xander sniped, wiggling closer. “Can you paint me a more vivid picture?”

“Be glad to paint it, mate,” Spike said, his voice a low growl as he slid a hand down Xander’s stomach. “Paint it all over you, if you like.”

“Spike,” Xander said warningly, grabbing at wandering hands. He was a quiet for a minute. “Why is that? How come people can, you know, get off with each other, be all sweaty and tangly and with the body fluids and it’s no big deal…but this,” he said, nudging Spike’s shoulder, “seems so personal and scary?”

“Scary? Well, you’re the one snuggling a vampire, pet, I guess you’d know from scary,” Spike chuckled.

“I’m serious. I mean, not that I’ve ever been big with the get in, get off and get out – ”

“Probably ‘cause _you’re_ not the one doing the getting off and getting out,” Spike said wryly.

“– _but_,” Xander continued with a warning pinch to Spike’s side, “it just that this seems a lot more intimate…”

“Oh, bloody hell, Harris,” Spike said, pulling back. “_This_ is why you didn’t want to get blown in the shower? So we could talk about our sodding feelings?”

“No, well, I wanted to talk about…you were going to blow me in the shower?” Xander’s eyes glazed a little, his point lost.

“No, I was going to do your poncy hair. What feelings, Xander? Do you even like me?”

“I thought I did…or I was starting to, and then we did this,” Xander said, waving his hand between them.

“So…you don’t like me anymore because we shagged.”

“Spike, I’m hovering just above total mental breakdown. Right now I’m only concentrating on the fact that you feel pretty damn good. But if I stop to think that just a week ago it was Anya here,” he stopped and Spike tensed below him. “And that if I lift up this sheet, and we’re naked and there’s evidence that we’re both guys…”

“Oh, plenty of hard evidence,” Spike said silkily, lightly brushing his hips against Xander’s.

“And that you started this by kissing me when you knew I was too drunk to stop you…”

“’M not the one goin’ around shoving blokes into graves and tongue fucking them,” Spike interrupted.

“And now I’m laying here naked with someone who I could have cheerfully staked an hour ago…”

“Should have mentioned that bit, mate, didn’t think you were ready for it…”

“Spike!” Xander jerked away, pulling the sheet up to his chest, and then realizing what he was doing and dropping it, red-faced.

Spike fell back against the pillows, laughing, as Xander dropped his head into his hands, groaning. “God. Why am I suddenly turning into a girl?”

Spike shrugged, still snickering. “Dunno. Could be because you’re in bed, naked, with someone else’s manly bits nudging you every time you move your ass.”

“Have I mentioned today how much I don’t like you?” Xander asked, a small smile of remembrance on his lips.

Spike’s smile faded as he looked up into Xander’s decidedly calmer face. “Might have let it slip in once or twice.”

Xander moaned softly. "I can't believe you remember that," he said, leaning down to press his lips against Spike’s, feeling the mouth beneath his open hotly, a hard body immediately pressing against him. Xander bent closer, rubbing against firm thighs and a hardening cock and then they heard it. Low, deep and rumbling as Xander pulled back with a shocked expression, his hand pressed to his stomach. “Shit. I forgot to eat. I’ve forgotten my keys, my stake, my own birthday…but I’ve never forgotten to eat.”

He looked back down at Spike, seeing amused irritation cross his face before the vampire fell back with a groan. “Hungry?” Xander asked.

“Nah,” Spike said, running a finger slowly up Xander’s thigh. “I ate before I,” his fingers tightened around hard flesh, “came.”

Xander slid out of bed with a groan. “Okay, that was lame. Even for you.”

“Xander.”

He turned back to see Spike sprawled naked against the sheets, a pale hand running slowly from his chest to his stomach, the fingers pausing to curl in slow circles below his navel. Xander smiled weakly and turned to head back toward the kitchen.

“Oh, right,” Spike said, jumping up from the bed. “You didn’t wanna shag in the shower, you wanted to get clean. Now you’re crawling out of bed with a,” his eyes dropped, “_very_ nice bit of interest.” Xander’s hands automatically dropped to his groin, and then jerked away, finding that touching wasn’t doing anything to lessen the evidence.

Spike threw his hands up. “Oh, well, by all means then, let’s find you a spot of dinner. Then maybe something will be on the telly.” He put his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “And then we maybe we can sort your socks or grout your tile.”

He looked up, seeing an uncertain Xander standing in the doorway, his eyes darting from Spike and then into the silent safety of the living room. “Why’d you ask me to stay if you didn’t want this?”

“This what?” Xander asked, and then shook his head, easing out into the living room. “I’m hungry, okay? And before, no one likes to be sticky, right?”

“I don’t know, kind of liked that feeling.” Spike slipped his hand down his stomach, now clean and dry, but remembering the warmth, the wetness that had been Xander’s sweat, come and heat. “Liked it a lot, pet.”

Xander stopped, his hand on the doorway. “Stop calling me that.”

“Calling you what, pet?” Spike said, his voice silky and dark as he closed the distance between him and Xander.

“That. Pet. Your…Buffy name.” Xander turned and walked out, his hand slamming hard against the door as he left.

Spike sighed, looking down at his bare feet curling into one of Xander’s t-shirts. Who the bloody hell did you have to fuck to get a fuck around here? He walked into the living room, seeing Xander still naked, his body dark but glowing hotly under the ridiculous red twinkle lights strung about the kitchen as he dug around in the cupboards.

Xander found half a jar of peanut butter and a box of saltines and set about making cracker sandwiches. He rattled around in the silverware drawer loudly, trying to drown out the sounds of irritated vampire coming from the living room.

“Wasn’t my ‘Buffy’ name,” Spike said quietly.

Xander hunched his shoulders, concentrating on spreading peanut butter evenly and eating one as soon as it was made. “Yeah, it was. Heard you say it more than once.”

“Yeah, but,” Spiked picked up two empty bottles, clinking them together distractedly. “Just something I say. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Then don’t say it,” Xander said as he turned and leaned back against the counter, brushing crumbs from his chest as he licked peanut butter off his fingers. He looked up, seeing Spike lounging against the edge of the table, his body taut and arched as he fumbled through the mess on the counter top for matches. Xander’s eyes lifted to the cigarette clenched between Spike’s teeth.

“You can’t smoke that in here,” he said pointlessly, knowing Spike would smoke anywhere he damn well pleased, and that he should just be grateful if he ashed somewhere other than the carpet.

“Need something to do with my hands,” Spike said, lifting a brow as he struck a match and inhaled deeply.

Xander shifted against the counter, feeling the sharp edge press into his naked back, the cold tile doing nothing to calm the heat racing through the rest of him. His eyes followed the lines of Spike’s body, noting that, even through all the word games and distractions, they were both still hard. He looked back up into Spike’s eyes that were peering at him steadily through a cloud of smoke. He wanted to see soulless or at least fangless, wanted to feel anger or irritation, but felt nothing more than the rush of mindless desire he’d been drowning in all week.

“This is so wrong,” he said tightly. “It’s only been a week…”

“You’re awful hung up on this ‘week’ thing, Xander.” Spike stood, gesturing toward the door. “Would it be better if I came back later? Does that work better with your timetable?”

“Why are you still here, Spike?”

“Why do you keep asking me that, Xander?”

“Answer me,” Xander said impatiently, wiping his hands angrily against the towel on the counter. “_Why_ are you still here? And don’t tell me you’ve got nowhere else to go – I’ve seen that movie and I don’t think you can sell the line.”

Spike dropped his cigarette into the nearest beer bottle, crossing the room before its extinguishing hiss had even died. He stopped in front of Xander, letting their bodies drag against each other and tilting his head slightly to look up into hot, angry eyes.

“I’m here because of a promise you made to me in a cemetery. You promised me this,” he said, leaning in to bite sharply on Xander’s bottom lip, being careful to ease off just short of causing anything more than a brief sting. “And this,” his hand dropped to Xander’s cock, giving it a short stroke as his other hand slipped around Xander’s hip to close firmly on the curve of his ass. “And this.”

Spike lowered his head to drop a kiss on Xander’s shoulder as he felt the larger, warmer body press briefly against his. “I never said that,” Xander groaned, his hands closing around Spike’s hips before he even managed to get the words out.

“Didn’t have _say_ it,” Spike said, slipping slowly to his knees as his mouth left a soft, cool trail down the center of Xander’s body. “Pet.”

His lips opened around Xander’s cock, his tongue flicking firmly just beneath the head before his mouth slid wetly down it, swallowing Xander’s shuddering gasp along with his hot flesh. He felt Xander’s fingers twine tentatively in his hair and then they were tightening, tugging painfully as Xander wrenched away from him.

Spike looked up, his eyes almost black as true anger finally kicked in. His lips, bruised from being rudely torn away from what he was sure was the most amazing blow job the boy had ever had, were opening to give a final ‘sod off’ before he made his exit. And then he was spinning, his feet rising off the floor and his head being saved from cracking against cold linoleum by the warm muscled arm that slid beneath it.

Then that arm was sliding away, the palm turning and running firmly down Spike’s chest. It was followed by hot lips that mouthed his nipples, the contours of his rib cage, the tight skin of his stomach, then paused and brushed slowly, maddeningly, lower before they were pressing against the head of his cock, discovering the foreskin and drawing back, and then pressing closer in exploration.

Feeling the softness of Xander’s hair teasing against his stomach as a hot mouth suddenly sucked him in. Finding a curious tongue, that was way too awkward and inexperienced to make him tense and gasp like this, gently probing at the slit. Spike reached down and touched the top of Xander’s head, his fingers getting lost in all of that dark hair, watching as darker eyes were lifted to his. “What are you doing?” Spike asked, cursing himself for the loss of heat and wet where he needed it most.

“Making good on a promise,” Xander said, with an extremely familiar quirk of his brow, and then hot, moist lips and tongue were back to work, tugging at the skin of Spike’s cock, and hands were reaching to lift his hips. Spike felt his legs sliding up and over strong arms as Xander knelt before him, that incredible mouth moving faster and harder, that clever tongue learning quickly how to make Spike stop questioning and start moaning.

Suddenly Spike felt himself dropped to the floor with a thud, the warm mouth still moving frantically on his cock, but Xander’s hand reaching for his own hardness. Spike watched those long, tanned fingers working quickly, moving in the same rhythm as the tongue that drummed along the underside of his erection. Xander’s other hand tightened almost painfully on Spike’s thigh and he moved his mouth faster, his fingers biting into Spike’s skin as a muffled groan was buried against Spikes’ groin.

Spike tangled his fingers in Xander’s hair, his body tight as he came, thrusting shallowly and groaning, “_Xander_,” just as he felt Xander pull away from him and arch back, a warm spatter hitting Spike’s hip and side as Xander fell across him with a moan.

Xander’s damp cheek and slack mouth brushed beneath Spike’s nipple, rubbing mindlessly for a moment and then a shocked, proudly gleeful face was lifting to look into Spike’s. “I think I can sleep now,” Xander said with a chuckle.

“Promises, promises,” Spike muttered, swiping a thumb across Xander’s wet, swollen lips.


	9. Chapter 9

_But I took the sweet life, I never knew I'd be bitter from the sweet_  
_I've spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free_  
_Hey lady..._  
_I've been to paradise,  
But I've never been to me…_

Xander’s hand shot out, cutting the alarm off. He fell back against the pillow, rubbing a hand roughly over his face. What the hell radio station was that thing set on?

He rolled over, checking to see if the embarrassing bit of sugary pop had awoken his bed partner. Pale hair faded into a white pillowcase. A paler cheek was burrowed into the pillow, the sheets pulled up to small, strangely delicate ears like a dramatically drawn cape. There be vampires here.

Well, one, anyway, and that was scary enough. Xander lay back, blinking around the darker than normal room, trying to remember what time he had set the alarm to go off. His eyes went to the sleeping bag he had haphazardly nailed over the window last night, after informing Spike that he could sleep on the sunny side of the bed and receiving a sour look in response.

Xander reached a careful hand out, barely touching the edge of the sheet by the back of Spike’s neck, and then jerked back when Spike suddenly rolled over onto his stomach, still facing away from him, and abruptly stilled. Xander held his breath, staring at the pale back that was now bared to him until he was sure that Spike was still sleeping. Or hibernating or regenerating or whatever vampires did.

Xander’s eyes followed the slight groove of Spike’s spine to that dip his back made right above where the curve of his ass mounded up the sheets. He felt his breath hitch slightly and clenched his fingers into the sheets, wadding the cloth into his fists and then stopping when he realized he was baring even more Spike nakedness.

He didn’t want to feel like this. He didn’t want to look at Spike and see ‘pretty’ and ‘strong’ and ‘dangerously hot.’ He dropped his eyes from the sleek lines of Spike’s back, staring blindly at the white sheets as if their blankness would blanket these thoughts. What was in this insane attraction to Spike? Was it just the inherent “Come to me, my pretty” danger in Spike that had nothing to do with him being a guy or no longer of the living? Or was it something more…and we’re not going there.

Xander pulled his hands away from that tempting flesh and rolled over with a sigh to check the alarm clock. 7:10, which meant he needed to get up, shower and head over to Dawn’s to get the mower, to the woods to mow, back to Dawn’s to get the girls, back to the woods for the Sunday morning routine, drop the girls off and then back home to his…vampire.

He eased out from beneath the sheet and into the shortest shower he’d had in days. Mostly dry, he almost silently opened his closet and drawers to find a t-shirt and shorts to mow in and khakis and a pullover to wear back to the woods. He was tying his tennis shoes when he heard the sheets rustle behind him.

“You don’t have to sneak out, pet, it’s your flat.”

Xander turned around, seeing Spike rubbing his hand sleepily over his wavy, ungelled hair and refusing to find that cute. “Gotta go mow,” he mumbled.

“Ah,” Spike answered. “Guess I kind of threw your routine off last night, eh?”

Xander decided not to enumerate the ways his routine had been thrown off last night and nodded toward the darkened window instead. “You gonna be okay here for a while?”

“Suppose so,” Spike answered, snuggling back down into the sheets with a grin. “Find and mock your porn, answer the phone with ‘Harris’ bitch,’ put your albums in all the wrong cases…no shortage of evil I can get up to on my own.”

“Don’t answer my phone,” Xander said with a stern finger point, and then grabbed his keys and left.

* * *

Xander put the mower back into the shed behind the house and used the hose to rinse most of the grass off of his legs. He ducked behind the shed, shucking his shorts and t-shirt and scrambling into khakis and pullover before the neighbors caught the early morning naked Xander show.

Ah, sweet routine. Comforting creatures of habit. Peaceful, unthinky normalcy. Okay, time to get the witches and the teen of vague mystical energy to go visit the secret, hidden grave of a vampire slayer. Bring on the normal.

He walked around to the front of the house and found Willow, Tara and Dawn waiting for him at the open door. It was always so strange to see Dawn in a dress. Well, a dress that wasn’t so short that it had him casting his eyes around for somewhere to look than at those long legs that got less skinny and more _eep, bad thoughts_, with every passing day. Willow and Tara in dresses was too normal to be naughty-making, but these Sunday morning ones were always less Renaissance Fair and more Parent-Teacher night.

They drove to the woods like usual, the only sounds the radio turned up so that they could ignore that they weren’t talking and the crackling of the cellophane around Dawn’s flowers.

Xander pulled off the road and drove in as far as he could without getting stuck. They got out and started into the woods in the unspoken order: Willow in the lead, Tara clinging to her hand, Dawn following behind and Xander bringing up the rear. He tried to concentrate on the shiny bounce of Dawn’s hair rather than the memory Giles’ sweater-clad back blocking the view of it and the feel of Anya’s fingers twining with his.

Dawn turned and gave him the same half-smile she always gave when she smelled the fresh cut grass and saw the grave cleared of the – _don’t think dead_ – old flowers. Dawn knelt and arranged the new ones as Tara started chanting softly and Willow stood with her eyes closed, her face lifted to the sky and her hands out, the palms turned up. Xander wasn’t sure if that was a witch thing or a Jewish thing, but he’d always felt it would be dumb to ask.

Besides, other than, “When are you coming to get the mower?” and “Need to pick up the flowers,” they never talked about what they did here.

Xander’s job was done once the mowing was finished, so he did what he always did, watched the others, casting the occasional glance around to make sure that no one disturbed them. Before, he had stood and muttered, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” repeatedly to Anya’s whispered questions of, “What’s Tara saying? Why is Willow doing that? Why doesn’t Giles look at any of us? How long do we have to keep coming here every week?”

The truth was, none of them really knew what to do once they got here. Tara chanted for a while, and Willow did that looking up thing and Dawn spread the flowers out and then gathered them together and then spread them out again. And then they all waited for Giles to say, “I suppose we should be heading back, then.”

In a way, it wasn’t much different from the first time they’d come here, except there had been more things to do that time. More things to do, important things, non-thinking things. And then Giles had said something in Latin, Xander was almost certain, and Tara and Willow and even Spike had nodded along with the words. Xander had just stood and held Dawn’s hand, feeling younger than she was and wishing that she were holding his hand, and not the other way around. It had been dark that time and easier to ignore the details, like the name engraved on the stone and the way the ground mounded up in front of it.

Xander looked down at Dawn, watching the flowers sift through her fingers. Stargazer Lilies, Tara had said they were. They were kind of bright and loud and big, but in some way the name Stargazer had fit Buffy. Not that she had been much of a dreamer, but somehow the way they’d all looked to her…

He realized that he was staring past Dawn now, staring at the name. Buffy Anne Summers. If he just read it like that, all together, it didn’t seem like the same person. Had he even known her middle name was Anne? He stared at it harder. Buffy Anne Summers. Buffy. Buffy, I….

_Buffy, I fucked Spike_. Xander’s eyes opened wide and bit down on his lip, hard. He hadn’t thought that. It’d be like yelling, “fuck” or “goddamnit” in a church. _Buffy, I left Anya, or she left me, and I fucked Spike, or almost, and now I think I might be_…Xander’s teeth snapped down on the tip of his tongue, tasting blood. He swallowed hard. He was not telling his best friend’s spirit, or whatever, that he was banging, or hoping to bang, her undead stalker.

Or maybe Buffy was up in Slayer heaven and she and all the other Slayer-angels were sitting on clouds and looking down at him, watching him suck off a vampire on his kitchen floor. Xander closed his eyes tightly, no, no, heaven was perfect and Buffy’s idea of perfect was not watching Xander try to deep throat her lusty nemesis.

He opened his eyes again to see Tara looking at him with a soft, understanding smile on her lips. _Oh, God, she thinks I’m trying not to cry. Yeah, that’s it, I’m just letting this place, and this day and this act, and not last night, get to me. I’m thinking of Buffy. And Slayer heaven. Which…huh, wonder if it’s like Jesus heaven with big, white fluffy angels or like Willow’s heaven, or does Willow even have a heaven, or maybe it’s just like another world, like when that portal opened Buffy just went somewhere else, but no, her body stayed here so does that mean she_… He realized that his eyes were opened wide again and that he was chewing his lip and Willow and Tara were both staring at him.

“I suppose we should be heading back, then,” he heard himself say.

Tara took Dawn by the hand and helped her up and they started walking back towards the car. Xander turned to follow them and felt Willow’s hand slide into the crook of his arm.

“Hang on a second,” she said softly. She watched until Tara and Dawn had moved away from them and then turned to look at him, “We need to talk tonight,” she said, reaching up to brush her hair behind her ear. “About what were going to do now. How we’re going to handle things.”

Xander nodded, looking at the ground and frowning when he noticed a spot were the grass was taller than the rest.

“Xander,” Willow said, tugging at his arm until he looked up at her, “Are you with us? Are you going to be able to do what needs to be done?”

He looked back at her, wanting to say, _Nope_, and stroll out of this place without another thought, but he felt himself nodding. “Yeah, Will, whatever you need.”

“Okay,” she said, sighing and then smiling a little. “Can you meet Tara and me at the Bronze tonight? Around eight?”

Xander nodded again, moving slightly so that her hand dropped from his arm. “What about…should we ask Spike?”

Willow frowned at him. “I thought you said that we couldn’t count on Spike, that it would be better to just leave him out of this.”

Xander shrugged. “Yeah, but…I don’t know, Will. This is,” he looked around, avoiding Buffy’s headstone. “This is asking a lot of us, and really I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to do it alone.”

Willow crossed her arms. “I’m not worried about that. And for tonight, it’d be better if Spike weren’t there. Maybe later, when we have some idea of what we’re going to do. Anyway, I need someone to stay with Dawn. So, I figured, after we leave here, I’d go by the crypt and see if…”

“I’ll ask him,” Xander said quickly. Willow raised her brows and Xander cleared his throat and said, “I have stuff to do over by Restfield, anyway, so it won’t be a big deal to stop by.”

Willow shrugged, nodding. “Okay. You can have Spike duty.” She turned to start toward Tara and Dawn. “After all, he’s _your_ patrol buddy and late night escort.” She looked back at him with an impish grin. “Come to think of it, he’s really been up your butt, lately.”

Xander groaned. Naturally, the one bit of Judaism he _did_ remember was, “From your mouth to God’s ears.” He shook his head and followed after her.

* * *

Xander walked into his apartment and headed straight for the kitchen to put the bags down on the counter. He glanced into the living room and found Spike sitting at the center of the couch, away from the windows, and leafing through one of the research books Xander had been supposed to look…something up in a while back.

“’Bit okay?” Spike asked, not looking up.

Xander nodded slowly, unloading his purchases, and then remembered to answer aloud. “Yeah, I guess. She, um, she hasn’t cried the last couple of times and Tara says that shows that she’s learning to start dealing with it. Living with it,” he finished quietly.

Spike nodded and Xander turned to open the refrigerator and stumbled over the over-flowing garbage bag that blocked his way. He looked around, discovering that the pizza boxes, beer bottles and empty take-out sacks were gone, presumably stuffed into the bursting bag at his feet.

“Spike…you cleaned,” he said in shock, the quart of milk in his hands falling to land in a safe, non-exploding way on the bag of garbage.

Spike shrugged, flipping pages faster. “I had to find somewhere to sit, didn’t I? And Harris? It smelled,” he looked up and met Xander’s eyes before wetting his thumb and forefinger and turning another page, his attention going back to the book.

Xander picked up the milk and moved the garbage out of the way to finish unpacking his groceries. He snickered a little. “William the Bloody – house vamp,” he chuckled, looking around the room. “What – you couldn’t do the dishes, too?”

Spike slammed the book shut. “Don’t,” he growled, his voice low and deadly, his fingers clenching on the spine of the book. “Look, I picked up your garbage, yeah, fine. I didn’t answer the bloody phone – didn’t ring anyway, you were with anyone who might want to call you, ya stupid wanker. I didn’t touch your precious cds, the comics under your bed are still in their little plastic coats and I only smoked twice.” He shook his head, tossing the book aside. “I did find your porn, though, and I was right –- sad lot, that.”

He looked up at Xander, his smirk fading. “So just…don’t. I got to sleep ‘til I wanted to get up, an’ I got to sit here, all non-flamey, so I held up my end of the bargain. I cleaned. Sod it. And then you come in here, dumping your snark on me, because we both know you don’t have the balls to say what you really want…”

“Here,” Xander interrupted. He held his hand out, the dark red bag gleaming in the low light. “I kept my part of the ‘bargain,’ too.”

Spike stood up staring at him, and then slowly made his way over to the kitchen, reaching to take the bag of blood from Xander’s hand. Xander handed it over, seeing Spike stare down at it like it was a fluttering virgin or a children’s choir –- or whatever Spike’s vamp kink had been back in the day -– and not like plastic full of cold, dead pig juice.

“I need you to do something for me,” Xander said, watching as Spike walked over to the cabinets and started searching for mugs. _I’m going to lie to Spike, well, not lie, but not tell and, okay, a week ago, so not big on my list of things that make my gut clench, but now_... “Not the Quark’s Bar mug,” he said, shoving Spike gently aside to replace the two-quart novelty cup and reach for something less Trek.

“But it’s the biggest one,” Spike argued. “Welsher.”

“Here,” Xander said, handing him a Batman mug. “Knock yourself out.”

Spike rolled his eyes and headed to the microwave. “So what do you want me to do?” he asked, vamping to rip the bag open with his teeth. “’Cause if it’s laundry, you’ll find it all piled up in the tub.”

“You know we have fancy newfangled machines for that now, right?” Xander paused. “Heh. New _fang_led,” he snorted and then looked up in horror. "Tell me you didn’t use the cheese grater as a washboard….”

“Barely held my dinner hauling ‘em into the bathroom,” Spike said, setting the timer on the microwave. “What you do with them now is your problem.”

“Now, here’s something I’ve always wondered about,” Xander said, leaning back against the refrigerator and crossing his arms, and then smirking a little as he watched Spike mirror his pose and lean back against the counter. “You don’t breathe, right?”

Spike nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing.

“And yet you have a super-keen sense of smell –- not unlike Daredevil, except you’re not blind -– so explain to me how this coexistence of no breath yet bloodhound sniffing occurs?”

Spike shrugged. “Don’t have to breathe, ‘s all. But I can still draw in air to scent something out.”

“So you don’t just do it,” Xander said thoughtfully, “you have to make yourself do it. So you were _making_ yourself huff my boxers?”

Spike’s lips fell open and his body language changed to righteous rebuttal just as the microwave pinged and saved him from answering. “What did you need me to do, Harris?” he said instead, lifting the mug to his lips and draining it and then starting the refilling and reheating process again.

“I…we need you to stay with Dawn tonight.”

Spike looked back at him, watching as Xander’s gaze fell from his. “All night?” he asked quietly.

Xander shrugged, flushing a little. “Whatever.”

“So…what’s up with you and the witches that I’m on Niblet watch?”

Xander turned away, busying himself with shaking the garbage bag and searching for a tie. “Just a Scooby meeting. Figuring out what the plan is now.”

“And…you don’t think I should be there for that?” Spike said, turning in irritation as the microwave dinged again.

“That’s not it, it’s just that someone needs to be with Dawn, and…”

“And it should be the person with the least to offer to the big summit,” Spike said, giving him a pointed look.

Xander dropped the garbage bag, walking out of the kitchen and slamming his way back to his bedroom. “Just be at Dawn’s after sunset,” he yelled back through the closed door and then kicked it hard for extra measure.

* * *

When Xander opened the door several hours later, he found the living room vamp free, a blood-stained Batman mug sitting in the center of the coffee table. CDs were scattered around the floor, and Xander didn’t even bother to look at the evil Spike had wreaked on his meager, post-Anya, music collection.

He picked up the phone and dialed. “Dawn? Is Spike there? Okay, tell Willow I’ll meet her in a few minutes. What? Oh, well, tell Spike I said right back atcha. _What_? Oh, nevermind.”

Making his way into the Bronze several pissed off minutes later, Xander saw Tara and Willow sitting at a small round table at the back. He walked over to them, smiling at their heads bent together, allowing himself a moment to ponder what sort of naughtiness they were whispering, and then hopped up onto to the stool closest to Willow.

“Oh, how the mighty Scoobies have fallen,” he said, looking at the two of them and forcing a grin. “I can remember when we could fill an entire booth at the Bronze.” He pointed across the room. “That booth over there. I think it has our names on it. I think they _bronzed_ it.”

Willow and Tara smiled half-heartedly, and then Tara reached for her cup, burying her face in it.

“So, is there a plan?” Xander asked. “Have we figured out a way to do this without losing our ass? ‘Cause I’m dying to hear it, really.”

Willow elbowed him and then picked up her straw, toying with it. “Yeah, I think I’ve come up with an idea.”

“Well, that’s great,” Xander said, looking around for a waitress. Beer was needed now, and he was okay with that. “So what is it? Cast a protection spell on the entire Hellmouth? Turn the demons into Tribbles with a few carefully muttered and hard for me to remember words?” His eyes gleamed. “Use Spike as bait?”

“Um, no,” Willow said, looking to Tara and then reaching out to take her hand and Xander’s. She leaned forward, staring into Xander’s eyes with a small smile playing on her lips. “I don’t think it’ll come to that.” Her fingers tightened on his, painfully. “Xander,” she said, dropping her voice, “I think I know how to bring Buffy back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Never Been to Me" by Charlene  
> Stargazer Lilies are a shout-out to Tabaqui's story "Changes"


	10. Chapter 10

Xander realized that he was going in circles the third time he passed beneath the marquee of The Sun. He stopped, trying to figure out why he was walking in the first place, considering that he had driven to the Bronze. Great, now his car was probably being used as a vampire necking place while he wandered the streets on foot.

He turned and headed toward his apartment, thoughts of retrieving his car and the rashness of strolling through Sunnydale after dark rising and then being dismissed as inconsequential.

_Willow could bring Buffy back. Her death had been mystical. She was in hell._ Xander focused on that last one. He was still trying to get his head around the idea that Willow had somehow known about this hell dimension stuff all summer long and had never bothered to tell anyone but Tara. He remembered trying to help Giles comfort Dawn with the idea that Buffy was no longer suffering, that she was being rewarded for all of her efforts as a Slayer, attempting to give substance to the meaningless, “She’s in a better place.”

And Willow had just sat there and listened, not offering information that it might not be true, after all, and that they should get moving on Operation: ‘Escape from Hell’ as soon as possible. So why hadn’t Willow said anything?

Xander closed his eyes as he remembered Willow’s reactions all summer. She’d seemed the least lost of any of them. Taking control on patrols, suddenly exhibiting a confidence that she’d never had before. _She’s been planning this since the day we dug the grave_, he realized. He remembered the glow in her eyes tonight as she detailed her plan. He also remembered the distant look on Tara’s face and her more silent than usual silence. But he also remembered that Tara had clung steadfastly to Willow’ hand while the plan had been unveiled. Still…

If Willow had noticed Tara’s less than rah-rah attitude, she hadn’t shown it. She’d just blathered on about urns and spells and how, really, it wouldn’t be that different than re-ensouling Angel.

_When_? he’d asked, and Willow had said soon, a few weeks, just until after Dawn went back to school. Don’t tell Dawn, don’t tell Spike, and soon Buffy will be back and all things will be made new.

Except that Buffy was dead, and dead was dead. Xander had a quick flash of vampires, zombies and mummy princesses, but dashed it away. He’d held Buffy’s limp, unresponsive body in his arms and lowered it into a coffin. He’d closed the lid over her face with hands that were scratched and bruised and nail scarred from building that coffin. Dead was dead.

And the thought of Buffy somehow walking back to them, smiling, was so creepy it literally made him sick to his stomach. She was dead. He’d had nine Sundays to get used to that idea. She wasn’t gone, she wasn’t _away_…she was dead.

And maybe if Willow had dropped this knowledge on them from the beginning, it wouldn’t be so hard now to understand. But to let them bury her and mourn her…and then to smile at him like she was going to wiggle her nose and presto – dead no more? But you couldn’t, or you shouldn’t, and, _God, I don’t want Buffy to be in hell_, but she was _dead_.

Hell, maybe Willow would have told him earlier, but he’d barely spoken to any of them since they day they carried Buffy’s broken body, wrapped in Giles’ jacket, back to the house. But then Anya had been hurt and Dawn hadn’t spoken for three days and Giles had seemed more broken than the body he’d never taken his eyes from until they put it in the ground. Then one night Spike suggested that they go patrol and Giles had hesitantly agreed. They’d found themselves racing around a cemetery, Willow barking telepathic orders and Tara casting spells, Giles and Spike giggling at each other in almost hysterical delight and the ‘Bot trying to stake everything that moved.

Xander had been following his ‘jump the vamp, get knocked down, hear Anya scream look out!’ strategy that usually more or less worked. That night, he’d been grabbed from behind, his stake pointed uselessly in front of him, hearing Anya babbling behind him and then seeing Spike streak out of nowhere, knocking the vamp off of him and hearing the eruption of a dusting behind him. Spike had moved on, turning back briefly to say, “Gotta be more careful, mate,” and Xander had looked down at the dust-free stake in his hands, wondering for the first time in five years, _What the hell am I doing here_?

Anya had walked up to him, beating the dust from the back of his jacket, and he had turned to her and said tonelessly, “Dammit, Jim – I’m a carpenter, not a Slayer.”

Anya had nodded back to him absently, breezing over the strange new nickname and said helpfully, “Yes, honey, you’re very good at nailing things.”

Xander looked up, realizing he had walked past his building. He could see the red glow on the balcony and suddenly he was running, taking the stairs two at a time and jerking open his unlocked front door. He saw Spike calmly closing the patio door behind him as he turned to face Xander, any lingering irritation from their fight earlier that day not showing on his face.

Xander felt the sudden energy surge plummet, and he stood unmoving, his heart pounding and his lungs aching with each breath.

“Where’ve you been?” Spike asked as he went to slip his cigarettes back into his duster. “Been waiting here for over an hour and I’ve spent the past several trying to teach the Niblet how to cheat at Rummy while the soddin’ ‘Bot just sat and stared at me, and well, creepy is what that is.”

_The ‘bot. The Buffybot that Spike had built because he couldn’t have her any other way._

“So you’ll have to forgive me if my patience is a little thin,” Spike continued.

“Don’t talk,” Xander said, crossing the room to him and bending to take Spike’s mouth in a rough kiss. He’d always been told that he was a good kisser, but he didn’t attempt any technique this time, his lips hard and reckless as they drove into Spike’s. Spike didn’t seem to mind the lack of precision, opening his mouth under Xander’s and using his tongue to fence fiercely back, and then making Xander groan as he pulled away.

“Xander? What…?” Spike asked, attempting to lean back in Xander’s tight hold to meet his eyes.

Xander shook his head, “No words, no words,” he muttered, and he bent his head back to Spike, sucking hard on that full bottom lip until Spike shrugged and pressed back against him, reaching up to grab the back of Xander’s neck and taking control of the kiss.

Xander’ hands slid down from their bruising grip on Spike’s shoulders and slipped beneath his arms to span his chest, his thumbs absently rubbing at nipples that pebbled up beneath a thin t-shirt. Xander tightened his fingers around the hard muscles of Spike’s chest, marveling at the small frame that his hands seemed to make all that much smaller, and at the strength and danger that radiated from it.

Spike moaned happily at Xander’s roughness, and Xander dropped his hands, rucking up Spike’s shirt up to explore bare flesh. He felt Spike’s stomach muscles contract reflexively and then Spike was breaking away, gasping, “Hands are cold, mate.”

Xander backed away, raising his hands so that Spike could see how they trembled. “This is what you do to me,” Xander said roughly, grabbing one of Spike’s hands in his and feeling how warm Spike felt in comparison, “I think about you, about seeing you, about touching you, and my hands start freezing and I start shaking like I’m going through withdrawal and I saw your fucking shadow on the balcony and I got hard, Spike.” He looked up at Spike’s shocked gaze, “What are you doing to me?”

“Nothing you didn’t ask me to do,” Spike said, moving back against him.

Xander backed off again, dropping Spike’s hand, “Then why?”

“Why am I?” Spike asked, pulling his shirt over his head and dropping it and then moving in to rest a palm firmly against Xander’s chest, “Should be obvious.”

He looked up into Xander’s wide-eyed stare that couldn’t quite meet his own. “Think I’m playing you, is that it?” He grabbed Xander’s still shaking hand, drawing it to the hard bulge beneath his jeans. “Can’t fake this, love. I’m not stupid enough to ask you to trust me, Xander, but this,” he said, leaning in to suck softly at the skin of Xander’s neck, “this you can believe.”

Xander shook his head, laughing harshly, “Okay, any port in a storm, right? You want to get laid and I look like the poster boy for desperation. So you get your rocks off and then – what? We hang out – kill monsters, play a few games of pool? ‘Cause I’m really not sensing long term, here. Somehow I don’t see me referring to you as my undead life partner and asking if you want to adopt Dawn.”

“What are you so afraid of, Harris?” Spike asked, concentrating on sliding his hands beneath the back of Xander’s shirt, his fingers working the tight muscles there as his lips brushed softly in the hollow below Xander’s ear, “Rupert’s not here to cast a disapproving eye, no Slayer to dust me for corrupting one of her mates.”

Xander swallowed hard, forcing his thoughts away from Buffy and back to the hypnotic rumble of Spike’s voice, “And Red and her girl? Well, people in glass houses. And somehow I think Dawn would think it was…neat,” Spike finished with a small laugh, his hands sliding down to curve around the seat of Xander’s jeans. “Besides,” Spike said, pulling Xander in to begin grinding against him slowly, “didn’t think you were into long-term, anymore.”

Xander reached back, taking Spike’s hands and tugging then away from him, “Anya…Anya loved me, couldn’t stand the idea of hurting me and gave me everything she had and I couldn’t get away from her fast enough. But you…you piss me off, and then you make me laugh and then you,” Xander’s grip tightened on Spike’s fingers, “you make me want things I never knew I wanted and being here like this makes everything just…shut up for a while and that feels…really amazing and it shouldn’t because I don’t deserve…” he stopped, feeling Spike’s fingers turn in his, holding his hands, the thumbs stroking his wrists lightly.

“’S not about deserving,” Spike said, his voice low so that Xander was forced to watch his lips move to hear the words, “I deserve to have died a long time before you even knew things like me went bump in the night. You deserve to feel like an utter git for not telling demon girl the truth and just getting your happy and moving on instead of stringing her along. But deserving or not, we’re both still here, and we both know how easily that can change. And there are so many things we could be doing, instead of blithering on about whether or not we deserve to.”

Xander jerked his hands away from Spike, spinning back toward the bedroom. “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head as he walked away, “I can’t do this…and I’m not going to. So, sorry I led you on, Spike, and thanks for the ‘happy,’ and, hey,” he said, looking back as he pushed the door to his room open, “stick around, ‘cause maybe there’ll be another sale on diamond solitaires and if you catch me during an apocalypse – who knows?”

Spike followed him into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He met Xander’s glare with a shrug. “Can’t hurt my feelings, pet. Stakes and crosses – but words will never hurt me.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest, his expression grave but his eyes lighting up a little as he flexed slightly and saw Xander’s eyes follow the motion.

“So Buffy’s dead,” Spike eyes flashed with pain but then he lifted his chin and continued. “Sad, that, but a Slayer’s tie to this world is always tenuous. She fought well, died saving her sis and an undeserving world in the process. You figured out that getting married while still getting used to the novelty of having to shave every day wasn’t, just maybe, the wisest course of action. Your Watcher felt like a world without a purpose wasn’t worth hanging around in and he carted the reality of your indecision off with him. Now you’re wondering why you’ve struggled to fight this fight, when it wasn’t your mission, it wasn’t your calling and it’s rather pointless now and you’re also wondering if you’re the only one who feels that way. And, here’s a bit of ‘dear, God, what have I done,’ on top of all that – you suddenly realize that you’re feeling all hot and trembly, or maybe cold and trembly, in your case, for someone you’d just as soon seen dusted a while back. How am I doin’ so far?”

Xander stared back at him and then dropped to sit on the edge of the bed, lacing his fingers and looking at the floor. “She’s gone,” he said quietly, “She’s gone and I don’t know if I did all of that just for her or because it was the right thing to do but it doesn’t matter, because now I don’t even know what the right thing is. And Giles – he gets a get out of the Hellmouth free card and I’m supposed to just step in – but if I don’t, what happens to Willow and Dawn? Five years, Spike, and I know that’s not a lot to you, but for five years I got to hide in the mix – not having to grow up because I could live the fairytale forever. No one dies and the good guys win in the end and yay us, because that’s the way it's supposed to be, and that’s the way it was.”

Xander looked up and met Spike’s gaze and then Spike dropped his arms and walked slowly over to him. His hand reached up and cupped Xander’s cheek, strong fingers sweeping over the curves of mouth and chin, “So, I’ll ask you again, Xander, and remember, you can’t hurt me – or at least you can’t do more to me than others have done before you. What do you want?”

_To be able to stand still for a minute and not have to fight anymore. To feel your arms around me and let someone else be the heart, for once, even if theirs isn’t beating. To know that you’re not just laughing at me and that you want me like I want you and that I’m not just a substitute for something that you might get back someday._

And when was last time anyone had cared what he wanted? His lips parted and he said, “This,” and then before either of them could add to that, Xander’s face was pressed against Spike’s hard stomach, his cheek hot and damp as his tears wet the cool skin below it. His fingers clenched around Spike’s hips and he felt a hand hesitantly threading through his hair as he was pulled closer.

Xander cried for Buffy, aloud this time, and for his own weakness in not saving her, and for his guilty relief that with her had died a life less ordinary. He cried for Anya and things he couldn’t take back and for Giles and the sadness and anger and quiet joy he’d felt at his leaving and not having to be answerable anymore. He cried for hating Spike and wanting Spike and at the tenderness he felt coming from him that was so much scarier than the posturing of the Big Bad.

Xander eased back, feeling Spike’s fingers tighten briefly on the back of his neck and then drop away. “Okay,” Xander sighed tiredly, not looking up, “go ahead. Laugh.”

Rough fingers grasped his chin and jerked it up. “I’ve never mocked pain, Harris,” Spike said, his own eyes wet but burning hotly, “I’ve caused it, and I’ve reveled in it and I’ve worshipped at its bloody feet – but I’ve never found it amusing. I don’t need a bleeding soul to feel it, either. Remember that when you’re wondering why I’m still here, waiting to have my teeth kicked in.”

Spike dropped to his knees, his hands running slowly up Xander’s legs from ankle to thigh. “Now, confession’s good for the soul and all that,” he quirked an eyebrow, “what do you _want_?”

“You,” Xander whispered.

“Thought so,” Spike smiled and then Xander felt himself falling back against the mattress as Spike’s body covered him and cool lips met his.

Spike kissed him with need and want and promise and Xander met him all the way, his hands running restlessly over Spike’s back and then clutching at his arms, his ass, the curve of his neck.

“That’s it, lover,” Spike moaned, feeling Xander arching beneath him and hands scrambling for the waist of Spike’s jeans.

“Don’t call me lover,” Xander mumbled, his mouth opening around Spike’s collarbone.

“That’s it, then, puppy boy,” Spike laughed into the curve of Xander’s neck.

“Lover’s good,” Xander said, his cheeks feeling stiff with tears but relaxing with the grin that tugged at them.

* * *

Spike kicked his jeans off and then made short work of Xander’s, his fingers ripping at the over shirt the boy was wearing, sending buttons flying.

“Hey,” Xander complained half-heartedly as Spike shoved his t-shirt up and attacked his chest with his lips and tongue.

“I’ll sew ‘em back on,” Spike breathed against Xander’s breastbone and then raised his head when he felt Xander still beneath him, “Forget I said that,” he mumbled, his lips latching around Xander’s nipple.

“Forget what?” Xander groaned as Spike’s tongue made slow circles and then blunt teeth scraped across his chest. “Hang on,” he said, pushing Spike back to sit up and tear the t-shirt over his head, throwing if off the bed and sending his boxers after it, “Okay, come here.”

Spike fell back against him, rubbing teasingly against Xander, letting his cock drag up Xander’s thigh and then across his stomach, leaving a cool wet trail behind it. Xander bucked under him, his hands trying to map all of Spike’s skin at once. Spike’s hands roamed just as greedily, smiling as he realized that Xander’s hands might be undead cold, but the rest of him was living, blood boiling hot. His fingers found a thick scar behind the crook of a knee, the soft, hairless inside of a thigh, and that trailing his fingers down the cleft between Xander’s buttocks produced a truly cartoonish yelp.

Spike’s lips followed his hands and he decided to fulfill his part of a week-old promise as they encircled Xander’s cock, learning the swell of the head that butted against the back of his throat, tracing the length of the vein that throbbed beneath his tongue. He swallowed around the hardness, hearing Xander moan and then feeling fingers in his hair and lifting his head to see if he was being asked to stop. Again.

He met Xander’s eyes and watched him give a slow shake of his head. “Just proving it was you,” Xander said, lifting his hips to brush his glistening length against Spike’s lips, “More,” he commanded.

Spike chuckled and dipped his head again, waiting until he felt Xander’s cock slide into the back of his throat before leaning forward and using the tip of nose to write his name in Roman script against Xander’s pubic bone. Xander’s hips rocketed up and he made some inarticulate sound that might have been, “Spike” or “Christ,” so Spike ducked his head again, writing it in Greek letters this time and having to relax his throat a bit more to keep sigma from looking like epsilon.

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Xander groaned, “but don’t stop.”

“Running out of lessons, pet,” Spike said, his lips sliding away from Xander. He looked up again, and then rested his chin against Xander’s groin and wiggled it, feeling crisp hairs tease at his jaw, “What do you want, Xander?”

Xander sighed, shifting his thighs restlessly beneath Spike, “How many times do I have to say it, you egocentric, orally endowed vampire? You – I want _you_.”

“No,” Spike chuckled, sending shivery vibrations through Xander’s cock. “What do you want to _do_?”

“Oh,” Xander said in a small voice. He took a deep breath and said, “Left side – behind the blue lava lamp.”

Spike got to his knees, leaning over Xander to fumble along the built-in bedside, his fingers closing over a – half-empty tube of Astroglide. _Well, well_.

He looked back down into Xander’s flushed face, seeing determination and lust war with fear and embarrassment. Spike tossed the lubricant into the air, catching it, “Sure about this, pet?”

Xander cleared his throat, “Does it hurt?”

Spike’s eyes flashed as remembered rough hands clenching his hips, a punishing hardness ramming into him, slicked up only with blood, or maybe a handful of spit, as well, if Angelus was feeling romantic.

Spike shook his head, clearing it, “Doesn’t have to – not the way we’re going to do it.” He popped the cap on the tube, squeezing some of the gel into his palm. He kept his eyes on Xander’s, easing his hand between them to glide his fingers slowly over the hot length of Xander’s cock and cupping his balls.

Xander jerked. “It’s c-cold,” he stuttered.

Spike stopped, and then reached for Xander’s hand, rubbing the slickness into it and then closing Xander’s fingers over it. He waited a few seconds, letting Xander’s now warm hand heat it up. He opened the fingers again, pulling Xander’s hand down until both of their fingers brushed against the tight opening.

Xander gasped again, this time from the unfamiliar sensation. “Feels weird,” he said softly as he drew his hand away, allowing Spike’s fingers to ease into him.

“Bad weird or good weird?” Spike asked, his voice low and tight.

Xander shook his head, “Don’t know yet. I’ll get back to you.”

Spike smiled and then leaned down, letting his fingers ease in deeper as he parted Xander’s lips with his tongue and kissed him deeply. He felt Xander start to relax against him and added another finger, shuddering at the warmth and the tightness clenching around him. His fingers slid slowly back and forth as he savored the heat from Xander’s body.

He felt Xander’s hand fumbling in the sheets and then heard a soft click. A few moments later, a warm, slick hand was reaching down to glide up and down Spike’s erection, and he arched his back, breaking the kiss to look down at Xander with lust-darkened eyes. “You ready?” he breathed.

Xander hitched against him, his head turning to look at the nightstand and the half empty bottle beer from a couple of nights ago.

“No,” Spike said quietly, turning Xander back to face him. “I only wanna taste _you_.”

Xander nodded jerkily, licking his lips. “I’m ready.”

“Won’t hurt you, love,” Spike said, dropping his head to kiss down Xander’s body until he was settled between strong but slightly shaking thighs. _No intent to hurt, no bloody mind melting pain, right_? he reminded the chip.

He slid Xander’s legs over his arms, lifting them until they draped over his shoulders and pressed forward, easing his way in slowly and feeling Xander tighten around him. “Shh, shhh,” Spike whispered, keeping his body stilled while everything in him told him to find his way deep inside all that glorious warmth. “Slow, yeah?”

Xander closed his eyes, reaching down to take hold of Spike’s hands that rested on his hips, “Okay,” Xander agreed.

Spike pressed harder, feeling a slight give and then suddenly sliding almost all of the way in and stopping with a harsh groan.

“Stop, stop,” Xander gasped, “Burns. It burns.”

“’S okay,” Spike said soothingly, tightening his fingers on Xander’s. “Just let me,” he twisted his hips slightly, drawing back and then pressing in again, feeling Xander jerk against him, crying out in pleasure this time, as Spike showed him something he’d never learned on him own.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” Xander gasped again. “Feels good…don’t listen to me. Just do that again.”

Spike grinned and then pulled almost all of the way out and slid all the way back in, giving that little hip twist again and swallowing Xander’s happy groan with a hot kiss. He stayed there, kissing slowly and deeply as his body shook in reaction to the heat. The kind of heat that warmed you from the inside, making you shiver at first and then filling your entire body until you felt like you were on fire. Even his sodding toes felt warm.

He started to move then, easing his hands out of Xander’s grasp and moving them to the boy’s hips to pull him closer. “Come on,” he muttered to Xander, “move with me, let me feel you…oh, bloody hell, yes, Xander, like that,” as Xander thrust back against him, crying out.

Spike knew he wasn’t going to last long. Too long since this acceptance, this want, this feeling. He dropped a still slick hand between their bodies and eased it around Xander’s hard flesh, rubbing faster when he felt Xander starting bucking against him.

“Yeah, love,” Spike sighed, “let it go…that’s it, God.” Spike realized he was getting close to whispering poetry, but didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the warm body shaking beneath him, the dark eyes staring into his with dawning awareness, the full parted lips that were answering back, “Yes, Spike, oh my God, Spike. _Spike_.”

Spike thrust harder, trying to ease back because he didn’t want Xander to be too sore to do this again, and soon, but he really didn’t think Xander minded, from the way he was twisting and moaning beneath him.

Suddenly the tightness surrounding his cock clamped down harder and Xander was yelling and this time it was something like, “Jesus, Spike!” which made him grin in completely unholy glee. The smile was wiped off his face as felt hot pulses cover his hand and chest as Xander slammed up into him again, harder and faster.

Spike wasn’t sure if his answering, “Christ, Xander!” was heard, but he was sure the boy felt the shuddering against him and the cool flood that burst from Spike as he rode out his orgasm.

* * *

Spike fell across Xander’s chest, and then rolled carefully to the side, pulling him Xander with him. “You okay?” he murmured, brushing his lips across a hot forehead.

Xander closed his eyes, nuzzling into Spike. “More than okay. New favorite thing. Never doing anything else.”

Spike laughed, pulling Xander even closer and curving a leg over a warm, damp hip. “Never say never,” he said, bending to whisper against Xander’s lips. “And don’t forget, you still get to try topping me.”

Xander’s eyes flew open, tired but glowing hotly. “I totally forgot about that. This is amazing. You’re amazing. I feel amazing. I’m going to stop saying amazing, but this feeling is...more than a feeling. I feel a song coming on.”

Spike groaned, closing his eyes, “Don’t. Thought you liked me, now.”

“Like,” Xander nodded back. “There’s like and lust and happy and, oh, kind of sleepy.”

“Go to sleep,” Spike said, dropping a kiss on Xander’s lips and then turning away to push a pillow under his head.

Xander eased up behind him and eyed the slight stiff set of Spike’s back and then went for it. His arms slid around Spike, pulling him back against him. He felt Spike relax and then dropped his head forward, letting it rest against Spike’s neck.

Fear coiled in Xander's stomach, replacing the feelings of discovery and mindless calm. _I could get used to this so easily, he thought, only to lose it_. Lose Spike or lose Buffy forever. Only the Hellmouth would ask him to make that choice. But Buffy was already gone, and that hurt had been faced and dealt with…mostly. Bringing her back wasn’t going to answer all of the questions, and Spike was here in his arms, and he was so raw and so open and it wasn’t just about a quick fuck and then a laugh at Xander’s attempts to figure out what it was about. But to break Willow’s heart, and Dawn’s in the process, or lose the only peace he’d known in months...

“I don’t think I could,” Xander said softly into Spike’s now warm skin, not sure which choice he was talking about.

“What’s that, love?” Spike mumbled into the pillow.

Xander tightened his arms around Spike. “I said I feel good,” he answered, hoping Spike would think the shakiness in his voice was just after-glow giddiness.

Spike ground back sleepily against Xander’s groin. “That you do, pet,” he said, dropping a kiss onto the hand that clutched his chest and settled into sleep.

Xander lay awake trying to think his way out of a no-win situation, until a soft yet hard body turned in his arms, a blond head settled into the curve of his neck and a cool hand made slow, gentle circles across his chest, lulling him to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Spike rolled over in the bed, kicking at the sheets that were wrapped around his legs. He lay there for a moment, trying to use his internal chronometer to suss out what time it was, and then finally turned with a sigh to look at one of the many alarm clocks ringing the bed. 1:30 in the afternoon. Xander would be home around sundown. A lot of daylight to kill in the meantime.

Spike kicked at the sheets again, sliding from the warmth with regret. He stretched, rubbing his hand through his hair and trying to decide how he wanted to begin filling the hours until…God, when had his days started revolving around Xander Harris’s work schedule? He shrugged. Thinking about it wasn’t going to make the time pass any faster.

Shower? Blood? Maybe a quick wank with one of Xander’s t-shirts as inspiration? That thought was tempting…okay, shower it is.

He stood under the spray, the cold tap untouched, just pure hot water pouring down over him, drawing in the scents of Xander’s skin and hair. He turned off the water as it started to cool, reaching for a towel and noticing that the pink one with the ‘X’ was alone on its hook. He refused to feel smug about that, since the ‘A’ was probably carefully tucked away in a drawer somewhere.

He used Xander’s still slightly damp towel to dry off, smiling slightly as he remembered the awkward kiss Xander had dropped on his shoulder this morning before mumbling, “Going to work. More blood in the fridge,” and then left, making an already quiet flat seem eerily still. Spike had slept again, then, easing himself back with the memory of the sound of Xander’s breath beneath his cheek.

He threw his t-shirt on and kicked his jeans into the bathroom, digging out a pair of Xander’s sleep pants instead and slipping into them. He rolled his eyes when he realized he had to pull the strings to the limit to keep them from sliding down his hips.

He headed into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of blood out of the refrigerator, frowning when he realized there were only two left. He hadn’t really given a lot of thought to what would happen with his blood supply now that Giles had abandoned his post.

His lip curled. Old Rupert had always been a bit chintzy with the goods, anyway, and if it hadn’t been for the occasional bit of cash he’d cozened out of him or Buffy to spread around at Willy’s, he’d have been as frail as Dru at this point.

He frowned down at the packet of blood in his hands, his fingers squeezing the plastic until it bulged on either side of his fist. It had been one thing to take blood from the Watcher, or the Slayer; withholding information or vampire reflexes until they’d conceded his price.

But to take it like this, now, from Xander, somehow it felt wrong. He flung the blood to the counter, digging through the cabinets until he found a mug and filled it, shoving it into the microwave and pressing the buttons angrily, as if begrudgingly drinking this blood would somehow made him feel less…_kept. Beholden. Owned._

The microwave pinged and Spike carried the cup into the living room, dropping onto the couch and glancing over to appreciate the fact that Xander had nailed layers of blankets over the wall of windows.

He brought the mug to his lips and drained it, letting it thump back on to the coffee table in front of him. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Not that they could ever understand that. Artificially warm and long dead and so far from human. But having it here for him…it had been a gesture. It was trust. It was acceptance. _It was your price_, the darker part of his mind chided.

He dropped his head back against the couch, closing his eyes. What was he even still doing here? How much of the limitations with the chip had been reality, and how much had been the excuse to get closer to her, become part of her world? He wasn’t helpless. He had contacts, places he could go where his name still meant something. Demon world was full of places for someone like him. Not to Angel. Never Angel –- even before the gem that never was, he’d burned, fuck it all, he’d blown up those bridges long ago. And Dru…nothing left there but the look in her eyes when he’d ripped her away from Buffy, still remembering the cry of Angel’s name on those dark red lips. They’d danced their last dance.

So the question was? _I'm counting on you ... to protect her_. And the answer? _Till the end of the world. Even if that happens to be tonight._

And then hearing Buffy as she had faced them all, for him: _He’s here because we need him._

And when was the last time he had been needed? Darla was the clever one, the one with the plan, the destination. Angel was the one with the strength, bringing the careful death. Dru with the divination, the warning when the time to run was coming. And then Dru had needed him. For a while. But she was like a cat, always finding another alley, another way out.

Then Buffy was gone, leaving him with the rest she had left behind. They’d eyed him doubtfully, trusting him with Dawn and then granting him leave to patrol, as if they alone controlled his access to the darkness of the Hellmouth. Willow had caved first, turning to him for approval of the plan of action. Giles’s agreement to that had been obligatory, but it had been some form of acceptance, nonetheless. Willow’s girl, Tara, was a bit of all right, or at least she’d never opened her mouth enough to prove otherwise. Xander and Anyanka, well, they’d just gone along with the rest, shrugging and nodding as if his inclusion didn’t matter one way or another, so long as it keep them human and whole at the end of the night.

So now here he sat with his borrowed cup of blood, eager again, waiting for night. Watching for eyes full of darkness that had nothing to do with color, for hands that trembled with want, not fear. Wanting for skin that burned with heat that was more than desire and for words that would welcome or cast out.

He shrugged. He was here, either way.

* * *

Xander walked in just at sundown, his hair sweaty and windblown, a yellow hardhat tucked under his arm. He looked over at Spike on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, a notepad and pen in hand.

“’Sup?” Xander asked, walking over to drop his hat, tool belt and lunchbox on the table.

“_’Sup_?” Spike repeated, looking up and almost hitting the California accent, but deepening his voice too much and just missing it.

Xander shrugged. “I was heading for casual, but ended up getting off at lame.” He nodded to the notebook. “Whatcha doin’?”

Spike ripped out a sheet of paper and handed it to him, his eyes not quite meeting Xander’s.

Xander accepted it gingerly, raising his brows at the opening lines as he began to read aloud:

> “I, Spike, also called William the Bloody, do promise to keep the self-named Scoobies from risking their bloody necks trying to patrol in lieu of a Slayer. This includes clean up after wonky works of magic, ill conceived and poorly executed demon reconnaissance, and any time Dawn should venture out alone. I do this in exchange for blood, smokes and monetary compensation and not for any altruistic intent that might occur to some. I expect to be paid.
> 
> Signed this day,  
>  Spike

Xander glanced up from Spikes's methodical Copperplate script and frowned. “What’s this red blob?”

“My blood oath,” Spike said, his fingers gripping tightly together. “To seal the bargain and verify it was made by me.”

Xander chuckled, dropping the paper on to the table and turning back to the kitchen. “A notary would have been less gross.”

“Sign it,” Spike said, his voice soft. He watched as Xander paused, reacting more to Spike's tone than his words. 

"Why are you --" their eyes met and Spike watched whatever flippancy Xander had been about to offer die on his lips as he really looked at Spike. The moment hung and Spike stared greedily into the rapid fire flare of all-too human emotions in Xander's all-too expressive eyes: confusion, annoyance, lust, insecurity, fear, resignation. 

“Fine,” Xander sighed, walking back over and taking the pen from Spike’s hand. He scrawled Alexander L. Harris across the bottom of the page, well away from the blood mark, and tossed the pen atop the paper. “There. Happy?”

Spike said nothing, and Xander looked back up at him. “I would have gotten you blood,” he said quietly.

Spike looked back at him, and then nodded briefly. “But now we both know the reason.”

Xander frowned and Spike sat up, reaching for the paper and moving to tuck it into his pocket and then grimacing when he realized he didn’t have any.

“Need to go back to my crypt,” he said. Spike smiled slightly at Xander's quickly hidden blanch of concern. “Need clothes. Smokes. More blood,” he said, watching Xander’s shoulders relax as he nodded.

Xander went back to kitchen to start opening cabinets, no doubt searching for his after work, pre-dinner snack, and Spike glanced back down at the paper in his hands. “What’s the ‘L’ stand for?” he asked.

Xander looked back over his shoulder with a grin. “Lov-ah,” he drawled.

Spike rolled his eyes. “I think the word you’re looking for is Lo-ser,” he called back.

Xander grinned, shrugging as he started making a sandwich.

“No, really,” Spike said, standing and dropping the paper on the table to join Xander in the kitchen.

Xander shook his head. “Not telling.”

Spike quirked a brow. “I’ll just ask Willow, you know.”

Xander licked a glob of mustard from the corner of his lips. “She won’t tell you.”

Spike leaned against the counter, looking down at his nails, wondering briefly when he’d stopped painting them. “Ask Dawn, then.”

Xander swallowed. “She won’t tell you either,” he said, his voice less firm.

Spike’s eyes met his, and then a bologna sandwich was on the floor, bare feet were being stomped by heavy work boots and a cool black t-shirt was pressed against a sun warmed Superman one as they both wrestled for the phone on the table.

“Give it,” Xander gritted out, his fingers sweaty and Spike chuckled, his fingers dry and using it to his advantage.

The phone squirted away from them, falling to the floor. They looked at each other again and then they both dove for it. Spike landed on it first with a grunt as the short antennae jabbed him in the ribs and then let out a larger grunt as Xander fell on top of him, his hands shoving beneath Spike to poke uselessly at the sides of the phone that was pressed between the vampire’s body and the floor.

“I said give it, you…undead asshole,” Xander giggled.

“Take it from me, you overfed bit of demon bait,” Spike said, trying to wiggle his way out from beneath Xander, and just succeeding in rubbing against the warm body atop him.

“Spike,” Xander breathed hotly in his ear, “give me the phone, or I’ll…” his dropped his full weight on Spike, grinding against the soft flannel sleep pants that covered the muscled curve of ass that was thrusting back up at him.

“Or you’ll what, Xander?” Spike purred back, snickering again as he was pressed harder on the phone, causing it to beep loudly.

“Or I’ll yank those pants, which by the way are mine, off those skinny hips and…”

Xander was cut off by a knock at the door. Before he could do more than rise up on his arms, still straddling Spike, the door opened and Willow was gaping down at them.

She shook her head harshly and then came at them. “Oh, my God, Xander, stop it! Get off of him,” she said, grabbing Xander by the arm and tugging hard.

“What?” Xander yelped, letting Willow pull him up and then stumbling away from Spike.

Spike sighed, grabbing the phone from beneath him and bouncing to his feet.

“She thinks you’re trying stake me,” Spike said, watching as a slow blush rose in Xander’s cheeks. He leaned closer, lowering his voice and breathing in Xander’s ear, “Yeah, that one will never stop being funny, will it?” his lips twitched as he watched Xander’s blush deepen.

Spike cleared his throat, turning toward Willow. “It was nothing, Red. I just told Harris here that he was spelling his middle name wrong, and he didn’t believe me, so we were fighting over who was going to call you to find out.”

Willow frowned at him. “L-A-capital V-E-L-L-E. How else would you spell it?”

Spike’s grin widened as he tossed the phone to Xander. “How else, indeed? My mistake, then.”

Xander glared at him and then turned back to Willow. “What’s up?”

“Yeah, Will,” Spike snickered. “’Sup?”

Willow looked slowly between the two of them, raising her brows. “Er...nothing as interesting as this,” she said.

Xander glared harder at him, which just caused Spike to chuckle harder. Xander rolled his eyes and said, “This isn’t interesting, Will. It’s beyond boring. I’d go so far as irritating, maybe, but interesting? No. So, what’s, um…what’s going on?”

Willow’s gaze flitted over Spike, who straightened, his grin fading as he nodded. “Right then. I’ll just let you two…” he turned and walked toward the bathroom, slamming the door hard behind him.

* * *

Xander winced and looked back at Willow, crossing his arms. “Subtle, Will. Thanks.”

She stepped closer to him, mimicking his pose. “What’s he doing here?” she whispered. “And why is he talking like you and wearing your clothes?” Her eyes widened. “You’re being _Single White Xandered_!”

“No, I’m not,” he hissed, leaning closer to her. “It’s Spike, remember? He showed up here last night, wanting to know what kind of big pow-wow we would be having that left both him and the ‘Bot out of the loop, okay?”

Willow’s look of concern increased. “You didn’t tell him, did you?” she asked.

Xander dropped his eyes from hers. “No, I didn’t tell him,” he muttered.

She relaxed a bit, easing back. “Good. Because I really don’t need Spike…” she trailed off.

Xander looked up. “Don’t need Spike, what?”

Willow shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that…he might not understand and we can’t have anything go wrong. I’m too close. _We’re_ too close to doing what has to be done.”

Xander nodded slowly and Willow reached out for his hand. “Hey. I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t break a promise to me. You said you wouldn’t tell, and I know you won’t. I didn’t mean to sound like I didn’t trust you. I do, Xander,” she said, keeping his gaze with hers, “We have to trust each other now, right? Like before.”

Xander squeezed her hand, turning away, “Yeah.”

Xander felt Willow's eyes on the tense line of his back and tried to relax. “Anyway," she said, her breezy tone informing him that his ruse was a weak one, "I came over to see if you could come by tonight. I didn’t want to just call, cause you know, Dawn and everything. But we really need to work out a new patrol schedule and I want to go over the plan with you and Tara. You left so quickly last night…”

“It was just too much, Willow, okay?” he said, turning back and giving her a sad smile, “I’m still trying to take it in.”

Willow grinned broadly, “I know. I mean, it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever done, but I know I can do this, Xander. I _know_ I can. Trust me.”

Xander nodded again, looking away from her. “Yeah. I’ll come over,” he cleared his throat, “Listen, Will, about Spike and me, when you got here…”

She rolled her eyes. “I really thought you’d finally had it. I know how he is with you; you two can barely be in the same room without getting in each other’s faces.” She frowned, tilting her head slightly. “Why’d he want to know your middle name, anyway?”

Xander sighed. “It’s this blood oath thing…oh, never mind, I’ll tell you about it later. You know,” he said, shrugging. “Spike.”

She grinned, turning to open the door. “Yeah, anything to get a rise out of you.”

Xander groaned behind a smile. Willow really needed to stop with the unfortunate turn of phrase. “So, I’ll see you later tonight.”

She nodded, pulling the door open. “We’ll order pizza,” she agreed as she left.

The bathroom door was flung open just as the front door closed. Spike walked out, buttoning his jeans. “She gone?” he asked, looking around.

Xander nodded. “Yeah. She just left.”

Spike leaned against the wall, staring at Xander. “Let me guess. Big meeting of the House of Scooby and I get to watch the ‘Bit.”

Xander started to answer and then had a thought, grinning slowly. “Well, you’ll both be there, anyway. You two can gross the rest of us out, putting blood and mustard on your pizza. Blood and mustard respectively, that is. We’re both going.”

Spike straightened, walking toward Xander. “That right?” he asked. “When?”

Xander shrugged. “Around eight, I guess? Why?”

Spike moved against him, his lips brushing Xander’s neck as he pressed him back against the door. “Just wondering how much time we had,” he said, as his lips trailed a path from Xander’s neck to his shoulder.

“Time,” Xander gasped, nodding. “Lots of time.”

Spike’s lips left the arch of Xander’s neck and found his mouth, brushing and biting teasingly before pressing deeply, drawing Xander’s lips into his and sucking them, flicking his tongue and demanding entrance. Xander's mouth caved instantly to the demand and he moaned as Spike delved inside.

Xander tightened his hands on Spike’s shoulders and he spun them both around, shoving Spike against the door, hard enough to make it rattle. His mouth left Spike’s and began a slow journey down the center of the vampire’s chest, his hands sliding down Spike’s arms as he went.

Spike leaned his head back against the door, groaning. “That’s it,” he sighed as Xander’s mouth opened around his nipple through the t-shirt. “LaVelle…”

Xander bit down sharply, grinning at Spike’s answering yip and then slid lower, pushing the black t-shirt up and tearing at the half-buttoned fly of Spike’s jeans.

“When do I get to learn _your_ secret identity?” he asked, the words muffled against the skin below Spike’s navel.

“What’s that?” Spike asked, reaching down and wrapping a hand in Xander’s hair.

“Well,” Xander said between mouthing Spike’s hipbone and shoving his jeans aside, “you weren’t born William T. Bloody. You know my secret name…when do I get to learn yours?”

Spike's answer was delayed by a hiss as Xander’s lips trailed down his cock. “You’re ah, you’re gonna have to spin a lot of bloody straw to learn that, pet.”

“Oh, is _that_ what they’re calling it these days?” Xander asked, as he opened his mouth around Spike.

***

They were really late getting to Dawn’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue from BtVS "Spiral" and "The Gift"


	12. Chapter 12

Xander sat in the brown, squishy chair in the Summers’ living room, a soft half-smile on his face as he watched Dawn and Spike laughing on the couch. Dawn’s head was tilted toward Spike, their foreheads almost touching, her long, dark hair falling over the paleness of Spike’s arm. Xander wasn’t even sure what the joke was, but from the slow rise of pink in Tara’s cheeks, it was probably something he would be horrified that Dawn had heard – or worse yet, had _said_ – had he been paying attention.

He closed his eyes briefly, just listening; the long unheard, almost forgotten sound of Dawn’s laughter causing something in him to melt away, a tension so constant it was almost unnoticed, fading. Xander opened his eyes, his gaze moving from Dawn to Spike, seeing the play of muscles under the black t-shirt as Spike’s hand reached up to brush Dawn’s hair back. Xander watched Spike pause as he realized Dawn’s eyes were on him, and close, watching this unconscious, almost tender gesture, and then his hand was moving again, brushing her hair back over her shoulder as Dawn leaned into the touch, grinning, causing Spike to chuckle again.

Xander’s hands clenched on his knees as he suddenly realized something, saw it, maybe for the first time, and wondered if he was the last one in this room to draw the picture from the lines. That somehow during this summer that had no end, Spike had stopped being the first best line of defense, or maybe the lines had blurred, and he had just blended in.

The smile on Tara’s face when she’d opened door to them, stepping back to allow them both to enter with an almost apologetic explanation that Willow was in the kitchen getting things ready but would join them in a minute.

Tara's words had been directed at Xander, but her smile hadn’t faltered as she looked between him and Spike. And Dawn…the hugs she had silently demanded of both of them had more than a little desperation to them, as if reassuring herself once again that they were both real, both still there. But then again, the bounce and the little spin she made as she took them by the hands and lead them into the living room had been pure Dawnster delight.

She’d been so excited to see them both on a night that just promised pizza and laughter and maybe some glimmer of the old, that she didn’t seem to find it worth mentioning that they had arrived together. She hadn’t seemed to notice how they’d paused in the center of the room, still standing shoulder to shoulder, the backs of their hands almost brushing, as if they’d been joined just minutes before.

Dawn had skirted the edges of the coffee table, almost dancing her way over to curl up in the center of the couch. She had seemed unaware of the way Spike and Xander had both eyed the large empty space next to her, looked at each other, and then quickly away, separating with abrupt motions. Xander had flopped down in the chair and Spike had gone to sit carefully on the edge of the sofa, close enough to protect, but with enough of a shrug to seem unconcerned about where he sat, or with whom.

Xander felt eyes on him then, and glanced up, expecting Spike, but finding him still laughing with – or at – Dawn, and then looked over to find Tara watching him, her head cocked slightly in question.

_Dawn_, he mouthed silently, nodding back toward the uninterrupted giggling on the sofa. Tara nodded, settling into the cushions behind Dawn, and smiling at Xander as they just listened and…it was good.

“Okay,” he heard exclaimed brightly – too brightly – behind him, “I’ve got the ‘Bot set up, cookie doughin’ in the kitchen, so Dawnie, if you wanna go get with…Spike.”

Willow’s ‘get the party started’ cheer had cut off somewhere over Xander’s right shoulder, and he tensed slightly as he watched Spike pull away from Dawn, slouching back into Big Bad with a head tilt as he said, “I’m not too much for baking, Red, but I wouldn’t say no to some lovin’ from the oven.”

“I didn’t mean you were…” Willow cleared her throat. “I was just surprised to see you here, Spike, that’s all.”

Spike frowned. “Harris said we were going to work a new patrol schedule. Sort of figured I’d factor into that one.”

Xander didn’t have to glance behind him to know that Willow was fidgeting and attempting an expression of big-eyed innocence.

“Patrol, right. Duh, of course I didn’t mean not here for _patrol_. Can’t patrol without our Super Vamp, right? Need you out there all fangy and ‘grrr,’ as you vampires do.”

Now Tara and Dawn had joined Spike in a trio of puzzled frowns staring at a point just behind Xander’s shoulder. Before Xander could see that babble and raise her some inappropriately timed humor –

“Xander, can I see you in the kitchen for a second?”

\- and there we go.

Xander got slowly to his feet, turning to face Willow, and finding himself staring at her back as she headed determinedly into the kitchen, expecting him to follow. He sighed and turned back, shrugging lightly at the confused looks on the sofa before he headed into the kitchen to face the music.

Willow stood facing him, her fingers already drumming on the counter. The ‘Bot was behind her, one hand stirring furiously in a mixing bowl and the other methodically removing lemons from a large basket.

The ‘Bot looked up as he walked in, smiling. “Hi, Xander!”

Xander nodded to it, smiling weakly, and then Willow’s hand was tugging at his jacket, pulling him closer as she lowered her head and whispered, “What is _he_ doing here?”’

“What?” Xander asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You said we were going to work out a new patrol schedule. Spike will be the point man, ergo, necessary at schedule meeting. What’s the problem?”

Willow leaned closer, her eyes never leaving Xander’s as she lowered her voice further. “You know the schedule wasn’t the main point of this meeting.”

“Okay,” Xander said slowly. “But we _do_ need to work out a new schedule, Will. We can’t keep doing these half-assed sweeps; we’re not even making a dent. We need Spike.”

Willow sighed in frustration, blowing her hair off of her forehead. “I didn’t think we’d ever completely decided that.”

Xander flung his hand back toward the living room. “Hello – closest thing we’ve got to a Slayer?”

Willow stared at him and then pointed a finger back toward the ‘Bot. “Hello – really not!”

Xander dropped his head forward, his fingers clenching on the edge of the counter before looking up, meeting her eyes again. “Scenario, Willow. Vampire flying toward Tara, fangs opening on her neck – who would you rather have racing toward her, Buffybot or Spike?”

Willow ducked her head, not looking at him, her silence answer enough.

“Willow,” Xander said quietly, stepping forward to put his hands on her shoulders. “He’s fought alongside us all summer. Question his motives all you want, but don’t let pride make you do something stupid.”

Willow pulled away from him slightly. “Pride? You think this is about _pride_?”

Xander shook his head, raising his hands in placation. “Whoa, whoa! That’s not what I meant, Will. I just meant,” he chewed his lip for a minute. “I just meant that sometimes stuff gets a little out of control, okay? I know you’re…” he saw that her hurt glare hadn’t lessened and he sighed.

“Look,” he started again, calmly, “I miss Buffy, too. We don’t talk about it, and really, not my thing there, but at least we’re all agreed on what we’re not talking about. We miss her and we feel helpless and sometimes it can make us try too much or do things that we think will fix everything…” He groaned. “I’m not saying this right.”

“What I’m hearing, Xander, is that you don’t trust me. You don’t believe me when I say I _can_ fix this.”

Xander rubbed his hand harshly over his face. He’d brought Spike along to avoid this very conversation, but he should have known that plan would blow up in his face. He just needed more time. Time to stall Willow and keep this in the planning stages until he could figure out why the thought of resurrecting Buffy wasn’t bringing on ‘happy, happy-joy, joy’ feelings.

“That’s not what I meant, Willow. You know I trust you. But you’re just dropping this huge thing on me and expecting me to rush in behind you, without knowing where we’re going or what’s going on.”

Willow crossed her arms, looking at him. “Well, isn’t that what you do?” she asked in a low voice.

Xander winced and Willow’s expression immediately became contrite. “Xander…I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” She pushed her hands through her hair, her eyes meeting his in honest confusion. “Okay, try to understand the ‘huh?’ moment, Xan. Why would I think that telling you I could bring Buffy back would make you feel anything but, “Go, Scoobies!”?

Xander looked quickly behind them and then took her by the arm and steered her back toward the basement door. “Way to acknowledge bionic vamp hearing and Dawn of a thousand eavesdrops, Will,” he hissed.

Willow grimaced at her own stupidity. “Right. Look, Xander…”

A loud _thwack!_ accompanied by an enthusiastic cry of, “Hi-yah!” made them both jump.

They turned, seeing the ‘Bot with a giant cleaver in her hand, a dismembered lemon on the counter before her. She replaced it with a whole one, the cleaver flashing again to the tune of another gleeful, “Hi-yah!”

Xander started slightly again and then rolled his eyes. “You know, Buffy-bot, the sound effects really aren’t necessary to make the knife work.”

The ‘Bot nodded in understanding, quietly halving the next lemon. “Thank you, Xander. I appreciate the value of your experience with weapons and other sharp, shiny objects.” Her bright eyes ran over his tight t-shirt. “Your expertise is evident in both your unique fighting strategies and your large and well-defined upper torso.” She grinned at him, turning back to the lemons.

Xander turned a shocked, slightly horrified gaze on Willow.

Willow fidgeted, shrugging lightly. “Spike asked me to make her stop hitting on him, so I fiddled around a little, and well, I think all I’ve managed to achieve is crush transference.”

“Well, really working the ‘trust me’ angle, Willow.”

“Why don’t you, Xander?” Willow asked quietly. “Okay, wonky robotics aside, what have I ever done that would make you think I don’t believe I can do this? We’re not talking silly love spells or…or trying to take on a god when I wasn’t running on anything but hurt and anger. I’m not rushing into anything this time, Xander. I’ve covered everything. I know what I’m doing, what I _can_ do. All I need is for you to believe in me. You used to do that without thinking.”

Xander stared back at her, his face expressionless but everything in him wanting to reach out to her, to trust her, to find something to believe in again.

“I’m only asking you to trust me, Xander,” she whispered, turning her head and blinking back tears. “Trust, faith, that’s all I’m asking in return for offering you hope – _believe that I can bring her back_.”

Xander shook his head. “It just feels wrong,” he said hoarsely.

“How can it possibly feel wrong, Xander? The only wrong here is Buffy being gone in the first place. And isn’t that what we do? Try to fix things that went wrong?”

“No,” Xander said carefully. “That’s _Quantum Leap_. We run around dark cemeteries going, ‘Oh, shit! Oh, shit!’”

“Xander,” Willow said, plowing ahead and ignoring the attempted quip distraction, “I have to do this. I really need you to be with me on it, but with or without you, I’m going to bring her back. I can’t leave her there.”

Tears started down her pale face and he felt that separating sensation again – part anger, part sorrow and a whole lot of confusion – that led to detached fiancée jilting and freaky cemetery kiss-and-run situations.

“All right, Will, here it is. You want to hear it – fine.” Xander leaned in, his face inches from hers. “You let me grieve all summer. You let Dawn cry herself to sleep – yeah, I heard it those first few nights we were all here – you let Giles leave believing that he had failed and…”

“We all failed, Xander,” Willow interrupted fiercely. “We had a moment there when we, one of us, any of us, could have changed it, but we didn’t. I didn’t trust my power enough, you weren’t strong enough, Spike wasn’t fast enough, Giles wasn’t knowledgeable enough – whatever the variable was – we failed her. Something happened in that moment and we weren’t enough. Something _wrong_, Xander. We failed – and she fell.”

“She didn’t fall, Willow,” Xander said sadly, wondering why now, when she was wanting to fix everything with a wave of her hand, they were finally letting this out, like it didn’t matter anymore, like it wasn’t real and they hadn’t lived it, just because Willow willed it so.

“It wasn’t failure, Willow,” he said gently. “It was a gift. Her gift.”

“Yeah?” Willow said, brushing back tears. “Well, it was a pretty crappy gift – and the price is way too high. She’s not going to pay that price, Xander. I’m not leaving my best friend in some hell dimension while we stand around and debate whether or not we’re morally entitled to alter something we – _I’ve_ – been given the power to change.”

Willow stared at him, her gazed fixed, determined and filled with something so much more than resolve it made Xander tremble, forcing him to remind himself that this was Willow, just Willow. “It was wrong, we failed her, she failed us and they don’t reward failure, do they, Xander? I’m not going to let her be punished for something we could have prevented, that should never have happened.”

The harshness left Willow’s face then and wide, tear-filled eyes fastened on his, and she really was just Willow again. “Please don’t leave me on this, Xander. All I’m offering is a second chance. Buffy’s death was mystical, unnatural. I’m not breaking any rules by just…bending it back to the natural order. I’m tired of feeling punished for this, Xander. And I’m tired of seeing shadows in your eyes, in Dawn’s…god, in _Spike’s_. I can do this – don’t let us fail her again.”

Xander reached out to Willow, ready to agree to anything to ease this sense of failure, and yeah, that’s what it was, what he’d felt all summer, he’d just needed it named, he supposed – and then pulled back when he heard a noise behind him.

“Did you already call for pizza? Did you get Hawaiian, ‘cause you know I…” Dawn’s voice trailed off. “Willow? Are you crying?”

Willow shook her head quickly, hearing the tremble start in Dawn’s voice. “Huh-uh. The ‘Bot was slicing lemons and I must have gotten a little juice in my…”

“Oh! Willow!” the ‘Bot cried out, grabbing a dishtowel and rushing to Willow’s side, scrubbing at Willow’s damp eyes with the same hand that held the cleaver, causing both Willow and Xander to shriek and jump back.

Dawn smiled slightly as she watched Xander disarm the Buffybot, but her eyes were worried as she dipped a finger into the cookie batter and licked it off. Her face contorted in horror. “Ewww…lemon chocolate chip?”

The ‘Bot turned, nodding. “Willow taught me lemonade and cookies. I thought lemonade _in_ cookies was much more time efficient.”

Dawn looked at Xander and Willow and pushed the mixing bowl away. “I’ll just wait for the pizza,” she said, snickering.

“What’s with all the girly screaming, Harris?” Spike asked from the doorway.

“Me?” Xander asked, easing away from Willow and slinging an arm around Dawn’s shoulders, aiming for a grin and just making it. “We’re just lucky that kitchen injuries are something I have a long, sorry past with. I’m the hero here, buddy. Show some respect.”

Spike rolled his eyes at him and Xander nodded, sighing, “Okay, come on, that patrol schedule’s not going to write itself.”

“You’re right, mate – oh, wait it has,” Spike said, waving a sheet of paper. “Got bored. Okay, me and Harris on vamp heavy nights – Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday…”

“Wednesday’s vamp heavy?” Dawn asked, frowning. “How come?”

“After church crowd,” Spike and Xander answered together, and then glared at each other. Xander waved for him to continue.

“Yeah. Uh – Willow and Tara can take Monday and Tuesday, with the ‘Bot of course, and we’ll all go on Fridays, soddin’ Bronze with their coin beer ‘make me drunk and stupid’ night, and I’ll take Will on Thursdays,” he said, smirking, “since I’ve been informed that Harris has a standing date with the telly.”

“_ER_?” Tara asked, nodding in understanding.

“_Charmed_,” Dawn giggled, earning her a headlock from Xander, who shrugged, “Sorry. I can’t be shamed with that.”

“So when you say on Fridays we’ll _all_ go…?” Dawn began.

“You’ll go to Janice’s,” Willow said, smiling.

“God,” Dawn sighed in frustration, pushing away from Xander. “When is it ever going to be my turn?” She waited a beat and then looked around at them, finding Willow busy affixing the schedule to the refrigerator door, Xander sniffing the cookie batter and Spike tossing the abandoned meat cleaver from hand to hand.

Tara went to pour some lemonade and looked up to find Dawn still watching them expectantly. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. We’re not even bothering to answer that anymore.”

* * *

Much pizza, a last minute cemetery sweep, and some ill advised, reasons-why-you-shouldn’t-bend-a-vamp-ov

er-a-cross-shaped-headstone snogging later, Spike and Xander were headed home; stopping off at the Bronze first to pick up Xander’s car. Xander neatly evaded Spike’s questions as to why he had abandoned it there in the first place. Well, not so much evaded as distracted with hands and lips.

Xander shut the door behind them, kicking his shoes off and unfastening his jeans. He looked up into Spike’s brow-lifted stare and grinned. “Vamp dust. Shower. More later.”

Spike watched Xander continue his slow strip, the trail of clothes following him to bathroom. _Awful…perky tonight_, he thought, frowning. They all were. Well, Dawn had been pleasantly so, hadn’t seen that many smiles from her since…but Willow and Xander? Not since before Rupert and Anya had left had they been that demonically cheerful. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought they spent that time in the kitchen getting stoned. He shook his head. Nah, nothing that poetic. Must just be for Dawn’s benefit. Though God knows they could all use a break from requiems and lamentations.

Spike looked around the living room, blinking a little from the overhead light and the glare from the lamps Xander had snapped on as he’d gone past. Spike went into the kitchen, digging through a few drawers and taking his findings into the bedroom where he dug around some more.

When Xander walked out of a steam filled bathroom a few minutes later, a towel wrapped around his waist, he found a darkened living room, lit by more candles than he’d even known he owned, and a naked vampire standing in the center of them.

Xander swallowed. “Spike…are you trying to tell me something?”

Spike smiled slightly. “Hmm…I have faith you’ll figure it out, Xander.”

Xander looked around at the candles, fighting a grin. “You know, every time I’d have to go to your crypt, I’d always look at all those candles, trying to imagine the big bad vampire going around lighting them. It was kind of sweet; sorry I missed it this time.”

“Why were you thinking about my candles, Xander?” Spike asked softly, walking toward him.

“Okay,” Xander said, his hands coming up as Spike pressed against him, his lips on Xander’s shoulder, “now here’s the part where I’m given too many choices. I mean, I can go with the obvious blowing joke, or maybe something more subtle, like burning at both ends, or there’s the dribbling hot wax, always a favorite…”

“Or you can shut up and come over here,” Spike said, taking him by the hand. Spike tugged him to the sofa, turning him around and gently easing him back against the cushions. Xander watched as Spike crawled slowly up to him, his lips brushing ankle, knee, hip and chest until they opened just beneath Xander’s jaw, sucking lightly.

“Spike,” Xander groaned, “if, ah, you’re trying to seduce me, let me put you out of your misery: I’m pretty much a sure thing.”

“Not seducing you, pet,” Spike said, his lips moving along Xander’s jaw to his mouth. “Leading you into temptation, whole different set of events.”

Spike covered Xander’s mouth with his own and Xander felt that familiar heat flare between them, but it was slower now, quieter. Spike’s hands weren’t reaching for him in that, _hurry, let’s get to the good stuff_, way. They were still, gentle, one cupping the side of Xander’s face, drawing his mouth closer, and the other was cool against his side, motionless except for the thumb that brushed softly against his ribs.

Xander met Spike kiss for kiss and they allowed themselves to surrender to the heat, the wet, the thrust of tongues. Drowning in each other and then giving life back with whispers and murmurs. _Yes. Want you. Touch me_. Words more felt than heard, lost between gasps and groans.

Xander looked up at Spike, seeing the body above him hidden in shadow, but the face bathed in light, looking back at him with eyes that made dark promises even as lips lowered to keep them.

As Spike’s tongue made a lazy path across his chest and stomach, Xander reached for him, needing to touch, to take, just as Spike was giving. His fingers curled through Spike’s hair, brushed at his shoulders and then were left empty as Spike moved lower, his mouth opening around the drape of towel and tugging it away. Xander moaned and brought his knees up, his feet rubbing against Spike’s calves, his hands reaching again to pull Spike back up to him.

“Xander,” Spike laughed against the straining flesh beneath him, “I’m kind of the middle of something, here. Stop poking at me.” He gave another slow lick to the head of Xander’s cock. “With your pokey fingers, anyway.”

“Need to touch you,” Xander groaned. “Need to feel you.” He shuddered beneath Spike as that wet mouth, impossible cool heat, surrounded him again.

“Feeling me, love,” Spike said, turning his cheek against Xander’s thigh and biting lightly. “Need more? That it?”

Xander nodded, arching against Spike as those blunt teeth scraped across the tender skin at his hipbone. Spike crawled back up him, his hand reaching behind Xander’s head to retrieve the other prize taken on his candle search. He leaned over Xander, his hands working as his lips lowered to Xander’s again, tugging at Xander’s bottom lip with his teeth and then reaching back, a slick hand sliding over Xander’s length.

Xander looked up at Spike’s body braced over him, one hand gripping the couch behind him, the other grasping his cock, squeezing firmly, working the slickness over his skin.

“Want to take me, Xander?” Spike asked, leaning back, drawing his hand between his own legs, letting Xander watch as he eased fingers into himself, eyes fluttering shut, head thrown back. “Want to feel me around you? Feel all of me?”

Xander’s hands reached out, wrapping around Spike’s hips, the fingers digging in. “Yes,” he said simply, ready to take anything Spike offered, as long as it meant he could touch, could feel, could have more.

Spike eased back, watching Xander’s face in the flickering light as he slowly lowered himself down, felt Xander hitch against him, hard cock nudging him, urging him on. He drew his legs up, planting his feet on either side of Xander and then reached back and took Xander in his hand, giving a few quick strokes before he sank down on him, his eyes never leaving Xander’s as he allowed himself to take, and be taken.

“Oh, God,” Xander groaned, feeling satin smooth skin gripping at him, fluttering muscles giving as they closed around him, coolness heating with friction. “Tight,” he sighed, his hands clenching harder on Spike’s hips, fingers finding the grooves in the muscles and tracing them. “So fucking tight.”

“Mmm,” Spike sighed, settling back against Xander’s raised thighs and wrapping his hands around them, using them as leverage as he began to raise and lower himself on Xander’s cock. “Every time like the first time.”

“Always the first time,” Xander said roughly, looking into his eyes.

“Yeah,” Spike said, smiling softly down at him. “You always get to be first,” he said, throwing back his head with a sigh as Xander began to move against him, slick heat moving in and out of him. He opened his mouth, drawing a deep breath and panting unconsciously as Xander slammed up into him again.

“Spike,” Xander said with a gasping laugh, “you’re panting. I’m making you pant. You, who have no breath.”

Spike raised himself almost all the way off of Xander, falling forward until his mouth crushed Xander’s. “Give me yours, then,” he gritted out, his arms wrapping around Xander and pulling him up against his chest, sliding back again, fast and hard, swallowing Xander’s moan in the kiss.

They moved together, bodies joined at mouth and hip, their thrusts lazy at times, frantic at others. Their lips covered every bit of skin they could reach, meeting again to share soft, silky kisses and then parting to suck and bite at tender skin.

“God, this is good,” Xander whispered, his hand easing around Spike’s cock and stroking in time with their thrusts.

“This is bloody fantastic,” Spike agreed, dragging his lips across Xander’s cheek. “This what you wanted, pet? This enough? Feeling it yet?”

Xander tipped his head back, looking into Spike’s eyes, his fingers closing around Spike’s cock as he wrapped another hand low on Spike’s hip, moving them together faster, tighter. “Yeah. This is it. Feel _me_?” he asked, thrusting up again just as Spike slid back down on him.

“Fuck, yeah,” Spike muttered. “Love your cock, Xander.” He tapped a finger against the hot cheek next to his as Xander’s eyes slid closed. “No, love. Look at me.” He waited until Xander’s eyes opened, dark and wet. “Look at me. Wanna see the look in your eyes when you come. Want you to see yourself reflected in mine.” He groaned again, grinding himself against Xander. “Wish I could see myself in yours.” He chuckled breathlessly. “Bet we look pretty hot.”

Xander slid a hand up Spike’s back, gripping the back of his neck and holding Spike’s face close to his. “We do,” he said softly. “The light against your skin, in your eyes, I can’t see myself, but I can see how you look at me. Can see the way your jaw tightens when you take me inside,” he kept his eyes on Spike’s, watching the candlelit blue deepen to black. “See how dark my hand looks, moving on your cock,” he dropped his eyes for a minute, looking down at their writhing bodies and then back at Spike. “Can see your body taking me in, watching you move against me, around me. See it…feel it…”

“Oh, god, Xander,” Spike gasped, moving faster, harsher, losing the rhythm and not caring. Xander’s hand gripped the back of his neck harder, pulling Spike in for a kiss just as Spike tightened around him, his tongue thrusting roughly into Xander’s mouth as his body shook violently, his come coating Xander’s hand and stomach as he cried out his release against Xander’s lips.

Xander dropped his head against Spike shoulder, both hands moving to Spike’s hips and holding him still as Xander thrust up desperately, moaning Spike’s name as he came hard, shuddering harshly and hearing Spike hiss as he felt Xander’s heat fill him.

Xander raised his head slowly, looking up at Spike and seeing the bruises, the bites that covered pale skin, and opening his mouth to apologize. Spike hesitantly ducked his head, his eyes unsure, and he kissed Xander softly, their bodies stilled and damp, wrapped tightly around each other as their mouths moved together easily, unhurried and sweet.

Xander pulled away reluctantly, looking up at Spike. “That was…pretty damn close to romantic,” he said, watching the candle-shadowed face above him, the jaw still clenched in pleasure, the eyes still tightly closed. Xander fell back against the couch cushions, taking a deep breath. “I guess we should probably talk about that, huh?”

* * *

Spike groaned, his head dropping to Xander’s shoulder. “Why not,” he sighed. “Been at least twenty four hours since our last bit of over-thinking. Probably due.” He pulled away from Xander, walking across the room to fumble around in his duster for cigarettes.

Xander sat up, reaching for the t-shirt on the floor and using it to wipe himself off. “Spike…”

Spike lit up, turning around. He looked at Xander for a moment, his body still warm from Xander’s, yet feeling the chill of coming rejection, and then nodded. “Okay, then. Suppose you _would_ rather talk about how it’s possible for us to be together that isn’t just trying to fuck the world away, than to tell me what went down between you and Willow tonight.”

Xander balled up the t-shirt, twisting it in his hands. “That was just…Willow and her need for…”

“Control,” Spike said, blowing a stream of smoke at him.

“No,” Xander said automatically, and then stopped. “Maybe. She was just surprised to see you, so I had to explain why we were together.”

Spike squinted at him over the cigarette, and then laughed shortly. “Love to hear _that_ explanation.”

Xander looked down at the shirt in his hands, smoothing the fabric over his thighs. “You know what I meant.”

Spike nodded. “Right. So, all clear between you and the chief. Back to the subject at hand, then. Where did you want to go with this? Are we still on the timeline thing -– only been a week since this experiment in insanity began, only been a fortnight since life as we know it shattered at Slayer central, only been a--

"--year since you fell desperately, unrequitedly in love with Buffy,” Xander finished, looking up at him.

Spike cocked his head. “That what you want to talk about, Xander?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

Xander exhaled, nodding, and then shook his head, saying, “You know, I’m still trying to get used to you calling me ‘Xander.’”

Spike took a deep drag and then stubbed out the cigarette. “Xander,” he said quietly, looking up and meeting the troubled gaze across the room.

“Spike,” Xander acknowledged back.

“Spike and Xander,” Spike said slowly. “Now there’s something I’d have never put together.” He looked at Xander, considering, watching candlelight dance on dark skin, glow in darker eyes. “Not that it didn’t turn out to be one hell of a good idea.”

Xander ducked his head, chuckling. “You’re dancing around the subject, Spike.”

“Been dancing for a while, haven’t we? Sorted _you_ out first off –- you trying on the armor of dark knight, ‘stead of white, taking what you want ‘cause there’s no one left to tell you can’t, or shouldn’t. No one you’re listening to, in any case.”

Xander shifted irritably on the couch, and then tossed the t-shirt aside as he got to his feet and headed into the kitchen. “No,” he answered, even though Spike had been telling, not asking. “That’s not why. You’re making a lot of assumptions here, buddy. Who’s to say this wouldn’t have happened, anyway? Even if Giles was still here, or if things had happened differently with Anya, or if…” he paused, jerking open the refrigerator and grabbing a beer. “No, wait, if Buffy hadn’t died, _you_ wouldn’t have wanted this, would you?”

Xander walked back into the living room, finding Spike still standing in the middle of it, his bare body tensed, defensive. Xander twisted the top off of the bottle and took a long swallow. “That’s what they call a ‘moot point,’ right?”

* * *

Spike gestured to the bottle in Xander’s hand. “I see you’ve armed yourself, Sir Knight. But wait,” he said, taking the bottle out of Xander’s hand and slamming it down on the table. “Don’t let’s make this a skirmish, when we can have a bloody war,” he shot a dark look at Xander and pushed past him into the kitchen, where he tore open cabinet doors, at last finding a half-empty bottle of Scotch and smirking.

“Let’s bring out the big guns, do this right,” he said, digging for glasses and filling them. “Get royally pissed and really rip into each other.” He toasted Xander’s shocked face and then tossed back a shot, grinning around a mouthful of whiskey. “Get to the heart of things, _the meat_. So, come on then,” he said, pushing the glass toward Xander, “Let’s have a go –-fucking and fighting’s what we do best. Give it to me, Xander.”

Xander stood still, staring at him, ignoring the glass, so Spike picked it up, walking over to him and pressing their naked bodies close. “C’mon,” he growled, wrapping Xander’s hand around the drink, rubbing harshly against him, “let me see that darkness.”

“I don’t want to fight with you, Spike,” Xander said as he shoved the drink back into Spike's hand and turned away.

“No,” Spike agreed, pressing against Xander’s back, an arm snaking around Xander's waist, holding him there. “You want to take little jabs at me, potshots, little bit of dirty fighting and then look at me with those big soulful eyes and wait for me to be the one to piss off, leave you blameless.” His chin settled on Xander's rigid shoulder. “Well, we’re not gonna do it that way, love. Gonna teach you a new game, show you a new way to play.”

Xander pulled away from him and walked into the living room, grabbing his jeans up from the floor and moving to put them on.

“Here, none of that,” Spike said, tugging the jeans out of Xander’s hand.

“Just let me put my pants on, Spike,” Xander said with an irritated sigh, holding his hand out, “then we can talk all you want, any way you want.”

“Feeling a little, er, vulnerable, are we, Xander?” Spike asked. He kept his eyes on Xander as he tossed the jeans out of reach. “Here,” he said, holding out the drink again. “I offered you something to hide behind. Take it.” Xander unclenched his fists and then reached for the glass. “Don’t need to cover anything up anymore, right? Nothing I haven’t seen, touched,” Spike licked his lips as Xander swallowed the whiskey. “Tasted.”

Spike reached back into the kitchen for the bottle and tipped his head toward the living room. “So, come on then. Gonna do this right. Have a few drinks, share a few confidences, nothing we haven’t done before, eh?” He nodded Xander toward the couch and them moved to stand in front of the coffee table and refill their glasses. “And remember, Xander, while you’re glaring those death rays at me, this was _your_ idea.” He shoved the glass toward Xander again and looked down into his own drink.

“You know,” he began conversationally, “never gave it much thought before, ‘cause you weren’t much more than an annoying blip on the radar, but you don’t really seem the talking type. You’re more of a doer who regrets after the fact, right? So what’s with this sudden need to chat me up? Could take it as a compliment, I suppose.” He raised a languid hand to his chest, his voice becoming caressing. “_Oh, Spike, you’re the only one I can talk to, the only one who understands me_,” Spike tossed the shot back, grinning. “But we both know that’s pure shite, right, mate?”

“Spike,” Xander bit out, starting to rise from the couch.

“Now, now,” Spike said, waving him back. “You’ll have your turn, your chance to speak your piece.” He waved the empty glass at Xander. “Or you can tell me to get the hell out. Go on, Xander. Scrape me off – let me have it – give me a good old fashioned, ‘Fuck off, Fangless.’”

Xander just glared back at him silently, and then reached for the bottle, filling his own glass.

Spike smiled. “Right then. So…we were discussing my affection for the Slayer…oh, why be so formal? We’re intimate friends now. My wanting to fuck Buffy.” His smile widened as he watched Xander’s fingers tighten around the glass. “Bet that’s been a thought that’s buggered the hell out of you, even before you let me…how was it, again? Put my ‘undead parts’ against you? What I fantasized about…the ways, the places, the positions?” He lowered his voice. “Wanna compare wank stories, Xander? I’m learning you’re a creative sort; love to hear the things you came up with, especially back when your blood ran so hot for her.”

Xander’s face was flushed from more than whiskey and Spike shrugged, backing off a bit. “But we’ve already been down this merry road, haven’t we? Told you that first night. She drew me in, just as she must have you. Wanted to be a hero’s champion, didn’t we? Drawn to the light…” Spike poured another drink, and then set it on the table, untouched. “My one shot at redemption, wasn’t it? The vampire who sacrifices himself for a Slayer. Epic, really. Should have been enough for whatever powers guide our course, but it wasn’t. In the end, not fast enough, not good enough.”

Xander’s breath hitched at that and Spike relaxed his stance and contined, "But, then, we always canonize the dead, don’t we? She can’t live up to the fantasy, anymore, so we’ll leave her to heaven. And now you’re wondering how we got from there to here, how I could claim to love her and yet turn to you so easily. Was I won over by that awkward charm you give off in waves? That young, hot body, that gleam of purity, of honor, that clings to you no matter to what depths you sink? What do _you_ think it was, Xander?”

“I think you wanted to get laid,” Xander said thickly, pouring himself another shot.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Spike said, nodding with exaggeration. “Oh, hold on, no, it wasn’t. If that’s all this was…” he paused, hearing Xander’s agitated heartbeat begin to slow, watching his eyes become heavy-lidded as the drink began to get to him. “You need to hear the why, don’t you, pet?” he asked quietly.

Xander looked up at him, his eyes tired and lost. “Just tell me what this is, Spike.”

“And what if I tell you that I don’t know, Xander?” Spike said, walking over and dropping to his knees in front of him. “Could call it grief, call it insanity, lust, therapy? Fuck,” Spike said softly, “I don’t know the why. Why her, why you? Couldn’t save her, so now I’m going to rescue you from yourself?”

Spike laughed low, leaning in to press his lips against Xander’s throat. “I think we both know I’m not that noble.” He let his head fall against Xander’s, their faces a breath apart, heavy lidded eyes trying to lose themselves in each other. “But you have to know how much I want you, Xander. If I was just looking to ‘get in and get out,’ there’s been a whole lot of sundown between now and the first time. But I’m still here and you haven’t told me leave, so I’m thinking you must want me, too? You do, don’t you, pet? Want me, like I want you?”

Spike ran his fingers through Xander’s hair, feeling the slight movement as Xander slowly nodded. “How much?” Spike whispered.

Xander closed his eyes, groaning. “I want to make you into a pair of man-pants and go commando.”

“That right?” Spike chuckled. They had drifted closer, curling together, their foreheads touching, Xander’s breath warming Spike’s cheek. Spike closed his eyes, “So we’ll just stay here, then. The undiscovered country –- from whose bourn no traveler returns, and makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others we know not of?” He swallowed hard, using borrowed words and leaving the rest unspoken. “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,” he murmured.

Xander peeked open one eye. “What’s with all the poetry?”

Spike laughed, rubbing their foreheads together. “’S not bloody poetry, you nit. Shakespeare. _Hamlet_. They do still teach the classics? Or at least make you watch the sodding films?”

Xander nodded sleepily. “Yeah. Mel Gibson. ‘To thine own self be true,’ right?”

“Something like that,” Spike breathed as he met Xander’s lips with his own, tasting whiskey and want and deciding that Xander being more of a doer than a talker wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The undiscovered country..." is from Hamlet, Act III, Scene i


	13. Chapter 13

Xander pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, glancing up to look in the rearview mirror at Willow. She met his eyes with a questioning look and Xander shook his head, dropping his gaze. They all sat in the car quietly for a moment, and then Xander took the keys out of the ignition, jiggling them in his hand.

“So,” he said, turning to Dawn, “school starts tomorrow, huh?”

Dawn shrugged, her eyes on her lap. “I guess.”

“C’mon,” Xander said, reaching over and squeezing her hand. “Ninth grade! Freshman!” A look of realization crossed his face as Willow and Tara open the back doors, getting out of the car. “Ooo…you’ll have Mrs. Fashnick.” He let go of her hand and lifted his own to his mouth, crooking two fingers out and wiggling them. “She’s got fangs.”

Dawn stared at him, wide-eyed. “She’s a vampire?”

“No,” Xander said solemnly, shaking his head, “She’s got this scary-ass snaggletooth…”

Dawn giggled, elbowing him in the side, and then reached for the door handle.

Xander sat back with a slight smile. First Sunday giggle. Go Xan-man.

He watched Willow and Tara’s backs as they headed into the house, his smile fading. First grave visit since Willow offered to make it a “we’ll look back at this and laugh someday” scenario.

It had nearly killed him to watch Dawn mess with those damn flowers again while Willow looked on with a peaceful smile. It had made something he used to have to steel himself into doing into something he was embarrassed to be a part of. Almost like Buffy wasn’t still in that grave, but in some vague nowhere and they were playing some sick game.

It felt fake. It felt wrong. But nothing had changed. Buffy was still dead, Dawn was still hurt. They all were. Yet somehow his hurt and anger were shifting direction from the fates, or Glory, or their own failure, to Willow. And that felt even more wrong.

He watched as Willow opened the front door, stepping back to let Dawn and Tara into the house.

_She hasn’t done anything but offer to make it right_. Xander turned away from the sight of Willow smiling at Tara and looked toward the tree where Spike used to wait for…something. _All Willow wanted to do was make things like they used to be._

“Xander?”

He looked up to see Tara still standing in the open doorway, looking at him expectantly. “Did you want to come in?”

He looked back for a moment, seeing her shy smile, her eyes looking back at him openly, honestly. “Yeah,” he said quietly as he shoved his keys in his pocket, opening the car door. “Yeah, I do.”

* * *

Xander stood in the living room, looking out the window as he heard Tara come down the stairs. She had changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, and was pulling her hair back into a ponytail as came into the living room.

“Willow?” she called. “Did you decide what we’re going to do for lunch? Oh, hey,” she said, seeing Xander alone in the room.

“Dawn was hungry,” Xander said, smiling. “Really hungry. Old school Dawn hungry. She and Willow ran down to the corner store because she was craving one of those greasy pizza pocket things they sell. You know, the ones in the warmer on the counter next to the porn magazines?”

Tara shook her head with a small smile and walked into the kitchen. Xander followed her, watching as she took fruit and cheese from the refrigerator. She looked up from slicing a pear, finding his eyes on her.

“Xander? Is everything okay?” she pushed the plate of fruit toward him and he shook his head.

“Listen, Tara…can I ask you something?”

Tara nodded, her eyes going back to the fruit on the counter, concentrating on sliding the knife carefully through the pale green skin and white flesh of the pear. “Sure, um, what did you want to know?”

“When Willow first told you about the spell…about bringing Buffy back, what did you think?”

Tara looked back up at him, her eyes searching his. “You mean, _after_ ‘holy god, my girlfriend’s crazy’?” she asked with a tiny smile.

Xander laughed a little, nodding.

Tara bit her lip thoughtfully, placing the knife down on the counter and looking away from him, at the windows. “The night after we came back from the first night in the woods… the night we dug the grave,” Tara said, looking quickly at him and then away, “I woke up and Willow was gone. I walked all through the house, looking for her, and then I saw this light in the backyard. She was sitting outside, surrounded by candles, and at first I thought she was doing a spell, and it kind of s-scared me, you know, like when Dawn tried to bring Mrs. Summers back?”

She turned her head toward Xander and their eyes met and something stuttered there between them, something unsaid but silently acknowledged and then they both pushed it away.

Tara cleared her throat, continuing, “But she wasn’t. She was reading. She had her laptop and those books the Watcher’s Council gave Giles…the texts about Glory’s ritual.”

Tara sighed, the look in her eyes faraway, and Xander concentrated on the sound of her voice, realizing he’d never heard her speak this much, and for so long, and that her voice was just flowing, no stutter, no quick glances at him and then away. Words gliding out smooth as glass, as if all she had needed was to be asked and to know that she would be heard.

“Willow was just sitting there on the grass, papers all around her, and I walked up and she didn’t even hear me, didn’t see me until I touched her shoulder. And it was warm that night, summer, you know? But she was so cold, I could feel it through her t-shirt, and she was strung so tightly she almost…I don’t know, vibrated. Then she looked up at me, and she was crying and I don’t think she even knew it, because she was laughing, too. She just looked into my eyes and said, ‘I found it.’”

Tara was quiet then, and Xander looked at her, feeling like he’d seen something too personal, and he knew that they were both blushing, but he couldn’t help it, he felt like he’d walked in on them, naked, and not in a good, ‘Come play with us, Xander,’ naughty thoughts kind of way.

Xander swallowed, his mouth dry. “She found what?”

“Where Buffy c-could have gone. The portal. Dimensions. Hell,” she said softly. “She knew then that if she…we could find the right spell, follow the right steps, we could do it. Bring her back. Raise the dead.”

“Yeah, okay, and that’s the part where my brain kind of shuts off. Raising the _dead_, Tara. We’re talking about forces here that we’ve never dealt with before, and there are reasons we haven’t.” He shook his head, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. “This is everything we were ever told was wrong…”

“It _is_ wrong,” Tara said, and Xander’s neck jerked as he looked up at her. “It's against all the laws of nature, and practically impossible to do, but it's what we agreed to.”

She tilted her head, looking at him. “Willow’s a very talented witch, Xander.” She nodded then, almost unconsciously, her eyes meeting his firmly, and he wondered how much that moment of self-assurance had cost her as she continued, “What we’ve seen her do…that’s barely been a glimpse of the power she has. I have to believe that she can do this, and even if she can’t, I believe that it’s something she _has_ to do. To try.”

“Would you do it, if you could?” he asked, feeling kind of low for pointing out her own limited power and for putting her on the spot like that.

Tara shook her head, her ponytail brushing her cheek. “Oh…I c-couldn’t, I mean I’ve never had that kind of…and, you know how much I liked Buffy, but it’s not really m-my p-place to…”

Xander felt like kicking himself as he heard Tara’s stutter worsen and felt her pulling away from him, becoming aware of things she’d told him here in the quiet kitchen, lulled by the intimacy of shared grief, of Sunday ritual.

“It’s okay,” he said, putting his hand up and giving her a lopsided grin. “Just, I don’t know. Spike said something the other day that got me to thinking. We were, ah, talking about Buffy, kind of hard to believe, I know, and he said, ‘we’ll leave her to heaven,’ and you know, I know he doesn’t know anything ‘cause Willow’s been all about the down low, but he said it with such…conviction…”

“_Leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, to prick and sting her_,” Tara said softly and then smiled, a real Tara smile, at the confused, slightly fearful look on his face. “Hamlet,” she said, reaching for a slice of pear, “he was quoting something King Hamlet says about Gertrude."

Xander shook his head. “Am I the _only_ one who fell asleep during that movie?” He smiled at Tara’s quiet giggle and then said, “But here’s what really gets me…if Willow’s found it, if she knows that Buffy’s in hell, why didn’t she tell Giles? I mean, he would have stayed then, right? If he’d known there was even a chance of bringing Buffy back? I totally get not wanting to tell Dawn, ‘cause there’s no point in getting her hopes up, and this is all kinda…freaky, but why not Giles?”

Tara frowned, blinking at him, and started to speak, but Xander shook his head, continuing, “And that thing she said about how it would be like re-ensouling Angel? You weren’t here then, Tara, but Angel wasn’t dead, well, not _undead_, anyway. He was still walking around, living large, and Willow put something back that had just whooshed out in the first place. But that’s not what we’re talking about now, is it? We’re talking about bringing back someone who’s dead. Been dead.” He cleared his throat, his voice choking on the words, “buried in the ground.”

He looked up at Tara. “And you’re really one hundred percent behind that? ‘Cause that night at the Bronze when Willow told me about this, that’s not the feeling I got from you.”

“Xander,” Tara said, her hand trembling slightly as she went to put the plate in the sink, “Willow’s a really talented witch…”

“Yeah, you said that,” Xander interrupted and then winced as her eyes widened, filled with hurt at his tone.

Tara took a shaky breath and continued, moving away from him again. “And Willow would never do anything to hurt anyone…”

“Well, duh,” Dawn said from the doorway, walking toward them to drop a grease-spotted bag on the counter. She grinned up at Xander. “What’d you do, eat the last of the ice cream and now you’re trembling before the wrath of Willow?”

“I, uh, I’m gonna go see what Willow got at the store,” Tara said, ducking her head as she passed Xander on the way out of the kitchen.

“What’s up with that?” Dawn asked, reaching for a slice of pear.

Xander shook his head, not looking at her. “Don't know. Guess she missed Will.” He flashed her a shaky grin. “You know how those two get when they’re not within hand holding distance.” He shoved his hands in his back pockets, turning away. “I better go. Gotta check in with Spike about patrol tonight.”

He gave her one last smile and then headed for the door, barely acknowledging Willow’s startled goodbye as he brushed past her on his way out.

“What’s up with that?” Willow asked.

Dawn shrugged, taking another bite of the pear, her eyes thoughtful as she watched Xander all but run from the house.

* * *

Xander opened the door to his apartment, finding it cool, dark and quiet. For someone who had loved to keep the blinds open, sunlight streaming into the rooms after the dark and dankness of the basement, he’d adjusted to the return to dimness quickly.

Spike was curled into the couch, his face pressed into the back cushions, Xander’s jacket from the night before still draped over his bare feet.

Last night had been bad. Patrol had begun as usual, quick sweep outside the Bronze, dispatching a couple of oblivious fledges, their limited powers of concentration too focused on listening for, “I am so fucking wasted!” to hear the whistle of descending stakes behind them.

They’d hit four cemeteries, Xander walking ahead of Spike and turning around, walking backwards occasionally, so that he could see the look in the vampire’s eyes when he said something particularly snarky.

Then they’d come across a pair of what Spike called Tethra demons, who’d been taking out their frustration at not finding anything living to kill, by hacking with axes stained black with blood at a marble angel.

Xander could understand their frustration. What he didn’t understand was what drew demons to the cemeteries in the first place. Vampires –- no choice there, they popped up where they were planted. Ditto zombies. But you’d think demons, be they green and spiny or red and horny, would realize that the only people likely to wander through a cemetery on a Saturday night were people looking to find demons. And not as some demon outreach, “Meals on Sneakers” program.

Spike had grinned, his face morphing even as his lips spread open, the human faced smile of glee somehow more frightening than the fangs and forehead that replaced it. And then he had _howled_, launching himself toward the marauding pair who had looked up with goggling looks of shocked horror on their faces. Then they had grinned with evil delight as they gave answering growls and ripped their axes free of stone wings, meeting the downward stroke of Spike’s blade with a clang that had shaken Xander to the soles of his feet.

He and Spike had tried fighting back to back, but that just caused the vampire to keep turning around, checking Xander’s position and counting his appendages, before whirling back to narrowly duck axes and claws. And then he whirled when he should have ducked and claws had lashed and axes bitten…

Xander closed his eyes, remembering the feeling of his own hands ripping the axe from Spike’s leg and watching as the blade buried itself between the neck and shoulder of one demon even as he heard preternaturally strong hands rip the head from the other. He hadn’t bothered to point out the futility of Spike’s threat to “shit down its neck.”

They’d limped home, eyeing each other silently as they realized they were going to get themselves killed, trying to protect each other. Both of them trying desperately to hold on to something they hadn’t defined or acknowledged.

Xander opened his eyes and reached down, trailing his hand over a pale arm that was marred by scratches that had faded to pink from vivid red and blood dripping.

Spike stirred under his grasp, turning slightly. A slow smile spread over his face and he leaned into the light touch. Blue eyes opened, sleep dazed and innocent, as he looked up at Xander. “Oh. It’s you,” he said, closing his eyes and snuggling back into the couch cushions.

“Ha ha,” Xander answered, his fingers running over Spike’s skin one last time before he pulled his hand away, turning toward to the bedroom.

“Mmm,” Spike said, scooting over a scant inch on the couch. Xander smiled down at him and then kicked off his shoes, sliding in behind Spike. He slipped one hand beneath blond hair that curled slightly beneath his fingers. His other hand fell naturally to the vampire’s side, rubbing absently at the soft t-shirt that covered Spike’s ribs.

The past few weeks had seen several moments like this. Xander knew that they both needed this kind of closeness, this kind of touch. Even though it usually wigged him out beyond the enjoying of it –- waiting for Spike to remember that vampires didn’t cuddle and shove him away. Or examining his own need for it, because he couldn’t remember needing to touch Anya this much, other than to arouse or to comfort.

Yet they’d end up curled together, either on the couch or in bed, and Xander would relax into it for a few minutes and then he’d realize it was Spike’s hand pulling his head down to rest against a hard shoulder. Or that the chest beneath his own hand didn’t rise or fall and that it wasn’t soft with curves of flesh but taut with muscle. And then he’d really start to think about it and wonder if Spike thought of him as “the girl”, or if Spike was pretending that he was someone else and that every time Spike’s eyes closed he was just surrendering to the fantasy. Or worse, that this was some kind of conditioned behavior ingrained in Spike after Drusilla, and all of this was just comfort, because he saw Xander that way, like something…broken.

He’d get so tense then that he wasn’t leaning into Spike anymore, but more just propped against him, stiff and anxious and grinning unnaturally and saying, “This is nice,” loudly and often. Spike would mutter a curse then and bury his lips against Xander’s throat, chest or thigh, wherever he’d thought it would most distract. And that was okay, because that kind of touching just made everything quiet again.

But when it was like this, when one or both of them were still mostly lost to sleep, it was easy. He’d slept here, like this, after they’d come in last night. Spike had stumbled to the couch and torn off his boots before falling back with a groan. Xander had cleaned the scratches on Spike’s arm, ripped the tear in his jeans open wider, swallowing hard when he’d seen the place on the pale leg where a demon axe had glanced off of bone and started to bandage it, but Spike had waved him off, mumbling, “Be healed by morning.” Xander had moved to put away the first aid kit and head to his empty bed, but Spike had whispered, “Stay.”

And so he’d woken up this morning, fully dressed, clothes stiff and crackling with demon blood, and Spike’s head on his chest, cool lips pressed against his throat. Xander had looked down at the body in his arms, stronger than his, and in his opinion, a whole lot prettier, and just held on.

And it wasn’t as if they never talked. Or snarked, fought, teased or just listened. While they patrolled, while Xander experimented with new things to do to hamburger, after they had sex. Spike pushed for answers on Xander’s feelings about the fractured state of the Scoobies, made him talk about Anya, about Giles, about what he thought Anya might be doing _with_ Giles. Xander would refuse to respond, and Spike would just answer for him, answers so close to the bone that Xander would just end up letting it all spill out and then shutting down when he heard all of his own fear and anger and confusion just…out there and Spike would shrug and say, “Still here, aren’t you? Means something, that.”

Spike would answer anything just about anything Xander asked. What the chip felt like when it fired, if patrolling really appeased his blood lust, where he’d learned to do those things with his tongue. The only questions he wouldn’t answer were about his past; the turning, Drusilla and Angelus and if the things the Watchers Diaries had written about them were true. Spike would just curl his tongue over his teeth and say, “Tell you when the now gets boring, pet.”

But they never talked about what this was, so it just was. Spike had only gone back to his crypt once since what Xander had come to think of as “the night of the naked fight,” and he guessed that meant they were living together, although there was nothing that domestic to it. Spike didn’t push him to out them to the Scoobies and treated him pretty much the same as he always had around them, although he had called Xander “mate” once, causing Dawn’s eyebrows to shoot up and Spike to say, “What?” before continuing with his tale of patrol, or as he liked to call it, “How I saved Harris’ ass last night.”

And even though they never put words to it or acknowledged anything, whatever this was came the closest to anything Xander had ever had of something real. More two-sided than the tussles with Cordy and Faith and somehow less confusing and guilt ridden than two years with Anya. The very fact that neither of them had to call it anything just made it seem more…honest.

Xander burrowed his face closer to the back of Spike’s neck, closing his eyes. _Yeah, honest._

It wasn’t like Spike didn’t lie to him, but the lies he told weren’t meant for Xander to believe. Just more of the old posturing, and they both knew it. Spike lied to him to cover his own reasons for being there. Xander lied to them both about why he was afraid that someday Spike wouldn’t be.

“Xander,” Spike mumbled, “calm down or start something. Your heart’s pounding me through the bloody sofa.”

Xander took a deep breath and held it, and then realized that just made his heart beat faster, so he exhaled, watching his breath stir the soft hairs at the base of Spike’s neck.

Spike reached back, groping at Xander through his jeans with a hand that moved with the ease of familiarity.

“Uh-uh,” Xander said, reaching for Spike’s hand then resting their joined fingers against his thigh. “Don’t want you when you’re half-dead.”

“Out of luck then, mate,” Spike sighed, growing still against Xander and not complaining about the mental wrestling and restless fidgeting that was disturbing his sleep, since it came with body heat and warm breath that bathed his cheek.

“Go to sleep,” Xander said, resting his chin on Spike’s shoulder. “Gotta be all healed up and dangerous, ready to save my ass again tonight.”

Spike grunted, his eyes still closed as he nipped at Xander’s shoulder. “Some danger I am…don’t even scare _you_ anymore.”

Xander tightened his arm around Spike and concentrated on just breathing and believing that that was true.


	14. Chapter 14

“Why do you always wear this?” Xander breathed into Spike’s ear, his hands running down the leather sleeves of Spike’s duster.

Spike tilted his head to give Xander better access to his neck and continued walking, a slow process with Xander pressed against his back, hands exploring beneath his coat and an insistent hardness grinding against his arse every time he slowed to untangle his feet from Xander’s.

“It’s a part of me,” he answered, hearing his voice hitching and taking a deep breath, trying to hide how much this was getting to him. “Feel naked without it.”

“Don’t like it,” Xander said, tugging lightly at the leather collar with his teeth. “Not that it’s not sexy as hell,” he said quickly when Spike stiffened against him and then started walking faster. “It’s just that it’s thick and heavy and…” his hands slid beneath the lapels of the jacket, running down Spike’s chest and stomach to the waist of his jeans, “makes it hard to get to the good stuff.”

“Hmm,” Spike said as they finally made it to the door of the flat, Xander still pressed hard against his back, warm mouth on his neck and warmer hands making their way beneath his shirt. “Have to take it off then.” Spike leaned back against Xander, bracing one hand on the doorframe. “Hold on – better idea. How ‘bout I take off everything _but_ the coat?”

He grinned as he felt Xander jerk behind him, hands clenching tightly on Spike’s waist, digging in and hurting almost enough.

“Oh, God,” Xander groaned, his hands sliding from Spike’s stomach to his hips and yanking him back hard, the thickness of the duster insignificant between Spike and several inches of excited Xander.

Spike chuckled, reaching back and slipping a hand up Xander’s thigh, over his hip, searching.

“Yeah,” Xander said his hips swiveling into Spike’s fingers even as his hands dropped to Spike’s belt, unbuckling it. “Nothing but the jacket.” He paused with two buttons to go on Spike’s fly. “And the boots.”

“Xander,” Spike said, his voice cautioning despite the laughter that filled it, “you do realize we’re still in an extremely well-lit hallway?” His fingers tightened around what he sought in Xander’s jeans and he pulled the key ring out of the pocket with a tug. “And while I don’t give a flying fuck who’s leering at us out their peepholes, I don’t want to listen to it from you after the blood flows back to your brain.”

Xander spun Spike around, shoving him against the door. “Let ‘em watch.” He bent his head to Spike’s lips, but Spike held him off, yanking Xander’s shirt out of his jeans and pushing it up, his lips lowering to Xander’s chest instead.

His tongue traced a path down Xander’s breastbone, feeling the grip on his arms tighten as he made slow circles around each nipple. Xander hitched against him, his hands sliding down Spike’s arms to clench on his wrists.

Spike felt the tension building in Xander and knew he needed more…they both needed more. Everything so far had been slow and careful, Spike leashing himself in acknowledgement of Xander’s inexperience, trying to avoid both an emotional jolt from the boy and a literal one from the chip.

But as warm fingers dug so deeply into his wrists that bones ground together and Xander's leg pressed so hard between his legs that Spike was almost lifted off the floor, he decided they both wanted something darker...something _more_. His lips parted around Xander’s nipple, blunt teeth breaking the skin and his tongue catching the few drops of red that welled up.

Spike felt the pain burst in his skull and closed his eyes against it. They flew open again when he realized that the chip was silent and the pain was from Xander’s fingers clenched in his hair, tugging his head up to meet eyes wide and startled, and lips wet and parted, hot gasps of air bursting against Spike’s cheek.

“You’re not supposed to be able to bite me,” Xander said, the words thick with shock and need.

“You’re not supposed to want me to,” Spike answered, his voice low and knowing.

They stared at each other for a long moment, Spike’s fingers cool and soothing on the bite mark, Xander’s hand trembling in Spike’s hair.

Spike started to pull away, his fingers sliding regretfully from the warm wetness on Xander’s chest and then felt the shudder beneath his hand as Xander spoke.

“Open the fucking door. Now.”

Spike jabbed the key into the lock just as Xander attacked his mouth. Then the door was opening and Spike was turning to press against Xander as they stumbled through the doorway, Spike’s hand still on the key and Xander’s fisted in the leather collar.

* * *

Xander dragged his lips from Spike’s mouth, across his jaw and then down his neck, biting teasingly even as his hand found its way beneath the jacket again, smoothing over Spike’s hip to curve around his ass, pulling him closer.

Xander grinned as he heard the breathless, high-pitched gasp, lifting his head to ask who the girl was _now_, and then everything just kind of stopped. In the empty quiet he could hear the pounding of his own heart, even hear the sound of air being drawn through Spike’s open lips and hear it find its way back out, unneeded. He could feel his hand, still clutched tight around hard flesh beneath the soft denim of Spike’s jeans, feel each individual fiber rasp against the calluses on his palm.

He felt a coldness creep up his legs and fill his gut, spreading through his chest and arms, leaving him numb. But it stopped there, not reaching his face, which seemed to be burning and expanding and spreading way too wide. He tried to shake his head, tried to turn away, but the heat just burned hotter and the silence grew louder and there was nowhere he could look where he couldn’t see her.

And her eyes stared back at him, as wide as his felt, her face bright with the heat that was filling the room around them and her mouth trembling with the same unspoken words he couldn’t say.

Then his chest hitched, rising and falling and breaking the silence as the word fell from his lips, sounding broken and harsh, “Willow?”

She didn’t answer and when she rose from the couch it was like something from above had yanked her up by strings. Her legs wobbled as she stood, her hands grasping uselessly around her, like she was searching for something she’d brought with her and not finding it. And then somehow she was across the room, brushing past him as he stood there, his body still pressed against Spike’s, cold and lifeless where they had been hot and urgent just moments before.

Willow’s shoulder scraped his as she rushed by, her hair almost touching his cheek, the smell of her shampoo and the soft thud of her purse against her thigh making her real.

Still Xander stood there, his fingers tightening and loosening damply against the leather collar of the duster, his other hand numb and bloodless over the pocket of Spike’s jeans. And it was almost funny. Like he could call her back, laughing, begging for some witchy assistance, because it obvious that he and Spike were just stuck together with some kind of freaky mojo, ‘cause otherwise he could let go, right?

He felt a tightness in his chest and looked down, wondering if this is what a heart attack felt like. He stared for a moment at the hands pressed flat against his shirt front, feeling the twisting and the wrenching and then it was gone as Spike shoved him away.

Xander watched his hand as it fell to his side, away from Spike, the fingers still curved in the shape of Spike’s body but grasping and empty now. He looked up at Spike, saw the hand that relented, reaching for him and jerked away from it.

Looking at Spike, the duster crumpled, hanging off his shoulders. Saw the t-shirt shoved up, bunched around pale ribs, baring a hard stomach mottled with bright pink finger marks above unbuttoned jeans. Saw the open belt, the buckle swaying slightly, bumping against a black clad hip with an unfulfilled promise. Saw everything Willow had seen.

And Spike looking back at him, his eyes acknowledging what Xander was seeing, but his face blank, waiting. No anger, no leering, no apology. Not even posturing embarrassment at having been caught getting bent by the Slayer’s boy, neck arched in submission, moaning Xander’s name between curses and kisses. Just blank, now, as if his face were clay and Spike would mold it into whatever emotion Xander felt this moment required.

Xander shook his head. They could figure out what this feeling was later, after he’d made up something to call it to explain it to Willow. Maybe whatever he came up with would sound good enough that they could believe it, too.

“I can’t now,” he said, trying to answer the silence and blankness of Spike. “She doesn’t…I’ve got to…”

He watched Spike turn away from him, looking toward the window where a flash of red hair caught the streetlight. “Hurry,” was all Spike said, and then Xander was out the door.

* * *

Xander caught up with Willow at the corner, her arms crossed, her head down as she walked determinedly, as if the only thought in her mind was, “away from here.”

“Willow,” he gasped, his lungs burning from the dash down the stairs, the sprint across the street. He expected her to ignore him, keep walking, and he geared himself up to jog alongside, but she stopped and turned, almost as if she had been expecting him.

“So _this_ is what it was?”

“W-what?” he asked, his tongue tripping over itself, his brain rushing to catch up as his half-prepared speech was preempted by an unexpected Q&amp;A.

“This is why you’ve been fighting me so hard about patrol, about Buffy, about…everything?” Her eyes didn’t quite meet his as she asked, and for some reason that pissed Xander off, because it wasn’t like he and Spike had been naked and it wasn’t as if she had been expected…

“Fighting you…I haven’t been fighting you on _anything_, Will,” he said, bending and leaning in a bit, trying to force her to look at him.

“Avoiding me, then,” Willow said, as she hugged her arms against her body, her eyes on the ground and then she whipped her head up to face him. “Telling me you ‘don’t know,’ or changing the subject, or saying that you have to go to work, or you have to _patrol_ with Spike.”

Xander winced at the inflection in her tone and shook his head. “Willow, there are things you don’t know--"

“Well, duh, Xander,” she cut in, flinging her arms out, her purse just missing him. “The only thing I do know is that you’ve been walking around like a zombie for weeks. And at first I thought, well, yeah, after everything with Anya…but this, I just…you and _Spike_?” Her eyes widened then in realization and met his fully for the first time.

“What?” Xander asked, his discomfort growing ever more discomforting, and he looked around them uneasily, trying to see what Willow was seeing that had her advancing on him, eyes locked on his.

“I think I get it now,” she said, nodding slowly. “_Cordelia. Faith. **Spike**_. Xander…you’re attracted to mean. You know, I wasn’t serious with that whole ‘demon magnet’ thing, kinda thought it was just hormones and dicey decision making skills, but you’ve really got a thing for mean!”

Xander backed away from her, shaking his head. “What? That’s not tr...” he bit the inside of his lip, changing tactics. “Anyway, Spike’s not mean, he’s evil. Well, Reform Evil.” He hesitated, and then went for it, a nervous smile tugging at his lips, “’Cause all that pig’s blood? _So_ not kosher.”

There was a moment of uneasy silence, and then Willow did the very last thing he expected her to. She giggled. A sort of nervous tension, giggle-choke combination, but still a giggle.

They stared at each other, Willow giggling behind her hands, her eyes still comically round and wide, brimming with tears and Xander just looking back at her, dumbfounded.

“God,” Willow said softly, her giggles fading away as she sighed, “I always seem to be walking in on you kissing the last person on earth I’d want to walk in on you kissing and then storming off in a snit, don’t I?”

Xander wiped damp palms against his thighs and swallowed. “Look, Willow, I know you’re incredibly freaked and probably really mad at me right now, but…”

“I’m not _mad_, Xander,” she answered; reaching a hand out to him and then letting it fall. “There’s the overwhelming sense of fear, and if you’re getting a vibe of ‘seriously wigged,’ you’re not wrong, but I think I was more…shocked than anything. Well, other than embarrassed, ‘cause um, yeah, there was a lot of that. I mean, seeing you kissing Spike was one thing, and I think I’m entitled to a little shock, here, but it wasn’t just kissing, was it?” she asked, her face trying for stern but flaring pink again.

Xander flashed back to the image of Spike with his belt torn open, shirt hiked up around his nipples, and closed his eyes, groaning. _Definitely not just kissing_.

He opened his eyes to see Willow looking back at him, her face flushed and concerned, filled with the same uncertainty he felt. They were too old for jokes about second base or third, but separated by too much left too long unspoken for unflinching honesty.

Xander cleared his throat. “A ‘gay now’ joke would probably be a bad choice at this point, huh?”

Willow shrugged, “Actually, kind of explains a lot…” she trailed off as Xander blanched, his eyes widening, “and um, I’m really not making this better, am I? Look, Xander, the whole guy thing, okay, something new and sort of unexpected, yeah, but Spike…” she chewed her lip for a minute, looking at him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t you worried that he could be just…using you? You know, messing with you, somehow, to…”

“To what, Willow?” Xander answered as he geared up for Willow’s ‘point A to point B’ thought process to start clicking through the same mental checklist of wrongness he’d been tabulating for the past weeks. “There’s no Slayer to get revenge on, and I don’t think any demons with world domination plans are going to start chatting him up to foil the crack team of Harris and Rosenberg.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Willow said, frowning at him. “It’s just that…we saw the way he was that day…at the tower. That was real, Xander, whatever he felt for her. And now he’s all into _you_ and that doesn’t freak you out just a little?”

_Only every other nightmare_, Xander thought.

Willow’s hands tightened around her purse straps, worrying them. “I know there are things you haven’t told me, and I get that, I do. I mean, I wasn’t exactly sharey about Tara and me, either, and she wasn’t even a…”

Her eyes were no longer avoiding his, but searching and seeking and Xander found himself wishing she’d get a little less comfortable and snit off again as she steadied herself and continued, “Hey, this is me, remember? And I know how this goes for you; it’s never just kissing…or more, to you. You just kind of…fixate, and less appropriate the person is…” She gave a short laugh, rolling her eyes, “I mean, it took you ten years and me finally getting a boyfriend for you to want to us to get smoochy…”

Xander’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head, ready to refute that, so Willow cast around quickly for someone else, “And, uh, Faith! You thought you had a connection with Faith, you were ready to _marry_ Anya, and that whole thing with Cordelia…”

Willow tilted her head considering, “Although somehow, Spike? Slightly less horrifying than Cordelia.” A grin wobbled out from the concern etched in her face. “I mean, it’s not like we ever elected officers for the _I Hate Spike Club_.”

Xander snorted. “How could we? Buffy had already declared a dictatorship.”

And the elephant in the room stood up, bowed and did a pirouette.

Xander watched as thoughts flitted across her face, realization and remembrance that there was more at stake here than what Spike might be doing to him or what he and Spike might be doing with each other.

Xander’s throat tightened, the words rising and choking. “I haven’t told him,” he said finally, his voice hoarse, unsteady. Willow didn’t answer, just stood there watching him silently, carefully. “But I’ve wanted to,” he said thickly.

“You _can’t_, Xander,” Willow said, her face earnest, voice even, steady. “Spike is too…well, we don’t know what he’d do. Try to stop us…not understand,” she shook her head. “We have to believe in this, to make it work. You, me, Tara --there’s power there, Xander, because you both believe in me, and we trust each other. Even if Spike wanted to help, it wouldn’t work. We can only tell the people we can _trust_\--"

“That’s just it, Willow,” Xander said softly. “I trust him.”

He watched Willow’s face as those words sank in, and he could tell that she realized that he had just figured that out for himself, as well.

“Xander, he’s a _vampire_.” She raised her hand as he stared to speak. “I know, I know, a vampire who’s patrolled with us all summer and baby-sits Dawn and sometimes, kind of sort of hangs out with us, but he’s a still vampire. And one _without_ a soul.”

“Oh, come on, Will,” Xander angrily. “How much of Angel’s fighting along side us had to do that soul you crammed back into him and how much was getting an ‘in’ with Buffy?”

“And how much of Spike’s was?” Willow snapped.

“But he’s still here, and she isn’t,” Xander said.

“And she won’t be, _ever_, unless you stop fighting me on this, and you _are_, Xander and I get now that there have been…things that you’ve been dealing with, but we have to stop everything now. Our lives, the pain of her being gone, none of that matters when we have this chance to get her back. For us…for everything she fought and died for. Stop. Think,” she said, her eyes pleading with his. “Think of how much better this, _all_ of this, would be if we could have her back.”

Xander rubbed his hand across his mouth, shaking his head. “It’s just that…Willow, this all seems like something we should just let be…and I…I don’t know…”

“_You don’t know_,” Willow repeated, and then stopped, taking a deep breath and shaking her head. “Even if we fail, and I promise you, I will do everything in my power to make sure we don’t, it won’t be any worse than it already is. Xander,” she said softly, “sometimes it’s like you don’t even _want_ her back. Can’t you see what her death is doing to me, to all of us? How much Giles and Dawn and, God, even Spike would want her…”

Willow stopped, her mouth falling open, her eyes widening in accusation as Xander’s breath caught in his throat. “Xander, you don’t want her back…because of Spike?”

“Willow…no, that’s,” Xander shook his head, backing away from her, because, oh, God there wasn’t truth there, not a truth he could face, and certainly not in front of her and it was just because Buffy was dead and they had buried her and bringing her back _wouldn’t_ make everything all right, because it hadn’t been all right before she was gone and oh, God, what if it was true?

“I understand that your loyalties are little…divided right now,” Willow said tightly, glancing past him to the darkened window of his apartment and Xander wondered if there was a tiny red glow on the balcony and if she saw and if she knew. “But what I’m asking from you is bigger than us, what we want doesn’t matter, the only thing that does is what’s _right_.”

“I’m not divided, Willow,” he said, his lips stiff, tight with anger and fear and the words forced out anyway, no real thought, just feeling and _God, please let these be the right words_, “what I don’t know is which right is the right. How do we know that this is right, and not something we _want_?”

“Because it’s hard,” Willow said, walking over to take his hand. “Because it hurts and it’s scary and it feels wrong. That’s how it is for us, remember? When we’re terrified, we know we’re doing the right thing.”

Xander squeezed her hand, looking past her as his jaw worked, bargaining with himself. “All right,” he said finally, nodding. “Whatever you need, whatever it takes…I’m there.” He swallowed hard. “It’s Buffy.”

Willow let her fingers brush soothingly against his as she pulled her hand away. “Thank you, Xander…really. I need you, and Tara, to be with me on this. I need your strength.” She looked up at him and they stood there for a moment as Xander tried to find that strength for her and Willow searched for answers in his eyes. “Because it’s soon, Xan. Saturday night, at midnight, we’re doing it. We’re going to bring Buffy back.”

Xander took a deep breath, the air hitching in his chest and then nodded again, jerkily. He turned slightly, waving a hand in the direction of his apartment, the darkened balcony, Spike. “Are you…gonna be okay with this?” he asked.

Willow smiled at him sadly. “Are you?”

* * *

Spike heard Xander enter the apartment behind him and pitched his cigarette through the open balcony doors, turning around slowly. “So. What's got Red bunched up more? That I'm a man...or that I'm not?”

Xander didn’t answer, just looked back at him with an expression that was drawn, tired and closed off.

Spike sighed, drawing his duster tighter around himself, his hands gripping his shoulders and then he let his hands drop, reaching for the bag of cigarettes, blood and t-shirts next to him.

“Right,” he said quietly, hauling the bag up to his shoulder and starting toward the door, toward Xander. “I guess you can send Dawn ‘round if anything too nasty for Willow to _control_ pops up, otherwise…you know where you can send the rest of my stuff. Or burn it. Whatever gets you through the night.”

Xander moved then, coming toward him with a brow furrowed in confusion and lips that moved wordlessly until he was close enough to touch Spike, reaching out for him and then drawing back and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Okay, why do I feel like I missed a few episodes?” He nodded to the bag in Spike’s hand. “Where are you going? And what’s with the running away from home act?”

“Going home. _My_ home,” Spike said slowly, deliberately, his hand tightening around the neck of the bag as he stared at Xander. “Crypt. Graveyard. Sodding off…getting out of your life…breaking it off. However she put it.”

Xander seemed to relax a little, edging closer to him. “Spike…Willow didn’t say you should…” he jerked his hands out of his pockets, raking them through his hair. “God, when will everyone stop thinking Willow runs my life?”

Spike shrugged. “When _you_ do, I ‘spose.”

Xander appeared about to argue and then shook his head. “No. Not anymore. And even if she did, she didn’t say you should leave, Spike. Or that I should ask you to.”

Spike’s hand dropped from his shoulder, the bag swinging between them. “So, what’d you call this, then? Temporary insanity? Put the blame on me? What did you tell her this was, Xander?”

Xander shrugged, smiling slightly. “How could I tell her when we don’t even know?” He sighed, turning away from Spike. “I don’t think Willow would see the ‘why’ in fighting and fucking.”

“S’not just fighting and fucking,” Spike said, grabbing Xander’s arm and turning him back to face him. “It’s…a thing.”

“A _thing_?” Xander asked, his voice rising and cracking. He laughed, a little bitterly. “I just faced down my very confused and not a little horrified best friend over a _thing_? Well, thanks, Spike; that clears up everything. All right, then, I’m not going through some freaky sort of post-traumatic stress sex therapy. I’m not attracted to mean. No demon magnet, here. Nope. It’s a _thing_.”

“God!” Spike groaned, closing his eyes and pushing Xander away as he tossed the bag aside.

He stood silent for a minute, his fists clenched, his body taut and trembling with frustration before he turned to Xander again. “Why does everything have to sodding be spelled out for you? I know I’ve given you hell in the past, but I never really thought you were slow. Isn’t it enough? You’ve got Red’s blessing, or lacking that, her indifference. Stop trying to define everything and…for fuck’s sake, Xander, I’ve already lived twice as long as you ever will, and at some point you have to realize sometimes there _isn’t_ a why.” He stared into Xander’s eyes, finding the same tired, defeated look he felt in himself. “Why can’t something just be?” He moved forward slowly, raising a hand to brush against Xander’s lips, cupping his cheek. “Can’t it just be?” he whispered roughly.

Spike felt Xander’s throat working beneath his hand, and then a warm mouth was on his, the lips driving and reckless. Memory slammed into Spike, a hard, hungry kiss in a graveyard, a boy desperately trying to prove he was a man. He moved his hands to Xander’s arms, rubbing lightly, soothing, but he felt Xander surge against him harder, not wanting to be soothed.

Xander’s hands were in his hair, running down his back and then back up to grab the collar of the duster, jerking Spike closer. His lips crushed Spike’s, driving them into teeth, drawing blood and then flicking it away with his tongue.

Xander’s tongue plunged deep, coaxing Spike’s out to play as his hands twisted loose from the collar, raking down Spike’s chest to clench on his sides, hard, rough thumbs scraping his nipples through the thin t-shirt.

And for the first time, Spike was the one to break the kiss, gasping as he pulled away from Xander, his lips swollen, wet and hurting in the very way he needed. “Christ, Xander, what is it about a showdown with Red that gets you so hot and needy?” He quirked a brow, wincing a little as his lips pulled into a grin. “Something you need to tell me?”

Xander shook his head, his eyes on Spike’s mouth. “No. Done that. Didn’t work out – kiss called on account of impalement.” Xander reached for Spike again, drawing him back with fistfuls of t-shirt.

Spike’s head fell back as Xander’s tongue swept down his neck, tracing tiny blue veins. Xander’s hands were down his ribs, under his shirt, shoving it up; nails scraping the muscles of his stomach as they followed their path back down. Then they were tearing at his belt, the buckle banging against Spike’s hip as Xander got it open.

Xander eased back slightly, his eyes hot as they ran over Spike. “That whole time, out there with Willow, this was all I could see. All I wanted to get back to.”

Spike swallowed, running his hands over Xander’s chest. “Didn’t think you’d come back,” he said, shrugging lightly and then looked up at Xander, his lashes lowered, eyes knowing. “Waited…in case you did.”

Spike’s duster fell to the floor as Xander shoved off of his shoulders and then their lips were pressed together again, kisses hot and hungry between tearing at clothes, rough touches that sought skin and found it.

Xander’s hands slid down Spike’s thighs, shoving jeans in their wake and then tugging impatiently at laces. Spike stepped back, kicking boots and trousers aside and then grinning down at Xander, who slid his hands around Spike’s hips, pulling him closer.

Spike shook his head, easing Xander to the floor and following. “Don’t need it, love,” he said, his lips brushing Xander’s as he ground their bodies together, earning him a harsh groan. “Wanna be inside you.”

Xander nodded, his head falling back as his hand closed around Spike’s cock, guiding it to him. Spike chuckled, brushing Xander’s hand away and then leaning back to dig through his bag, finding the small tube beneath the cigarettes and blood and drawing it out.

Xander raised his head, staring at Spike as he popped the cap. “You were stealing the _lube_?”

“Souvenir,” Spike said, slipping a slick hand around Xander’s erection and then sliding it teasingly below. “Didn’t want this to be for anyone but me.”

“Well, technically,” Xander gasped, his body tensing as Spike’s fingers slid into him, “there was a whole lot of this before you,” he said, curling his fingers into a loose fist and shaking it.

“You’re ruining the moment, Xander,” Spike sing-songed as he twisted his fingers inside the warm body beneath him, making Xander shudder, clenching around him until the only sounds he heard were low moans and wordless pleas.

“Shh,” Spike murmured, his lips brushing Xander’s and then he rose up on his knees, cock jutting forward, glistening and eager, as he wrapped his hands around Xander’s thighs, lifting him. He felt Xander tense and tighten around him in a way now so familiar as he eased inside.

He moved them slowly, carefully, allowing Xander’s body to adjust to the burn, finding the rhythm, but Xander hands closed over his, forcing them together harder, faster, “More, Spike, please,” gritting out between clenched teeth.

Spike eased Xander’s grip on his hands, pulling him up so that he could lean down for a kiss, but Xander turned his head, his mouth opening against Spike’s throat, biting sharply and forcing a groan from Spike, his thrusts deepening, matching the pull of Xander’s mouth on his skin.

“_Harder_,” Xander groaned, his breath hot, his mouth careless, his teeth sharp on Spike’s neck. Spike answered him by sliding his hands up Xander’s hips, his body bowed and trembling as he pulled Xander closer, rhythm breaking and bending into a fierce desperate lunging of bodies that made them both cry out.

Xander’s fingers closed over Spike’s hand again, dragging it to his cock. Their slick hands slid together over it until Spike squeezed firmly from base to tip with an almost vicious twist. The force of Xander’s orgasm wrenched them apart, and he fell back to the floor, his hands closing around Spike’s hips in a bruising grip, thumbs digging into hipbones as ground the two of them together until Spike tensed above him, pressing deep as he came with a choked cry.

They lay there for a moment, Xander’s breath bathing Spike’s neck and their bodies trembling against each other, warm and weak.

“Fuck,” Spike groaned, as he rolled off of Xander and rubbed a hand over the finger shaped bruises that were rising on his hips and thighs. “What the hell got into you, pet?”

Xander grinned up at him blearily. “I might be loopy with the afterglow, but I’m pretty sure it was you…”

Spike looked down at him and then chuckled. “You know, I thought we were, I dunno, drawn to each other ‘cause we were both blokes with great cocks who got off on a spot of monster fighting, but that’s not it, is it? It’s the bad sexual puns.”

Xander shrugged, pulling Spike back against him. “Maybe that’s our ‘why,’” he said, grinning, as he fitted them together and smoothed his hand over the marks he’d made on Spike’s skin.

Spike watched as Xander got quiet again. He wasn’t blind, he’d seen how the boy got this sort of…desperate calm about him when they were shagging, face blissed-out, as if he were using Spike’s hands, his body, to help him to forget. And then afterward came the quiet, when it all came back around them, could see it roaring in Xander’s head behind eyes that turned away, closing, shutting him out.

Spike sighed as Xander relaxed against him in sleep, hoping that this…thing, whatever it was, whatever they made it, was stronger than their past.


	15. Chapter 15

Xander opened the door to the apartment quietly, glancing toward the place on the sofa where he found Spike most afternoons. Reading. Watching TV. Or sprawled out, wearing only his, “why, yes, a shag would be lovely, thanks for showing up,” grin. But the sofa was empty, and Xander exhaled a breath hadn’t realized he was holding as he closed the door behind him and went to place his hardhat on the table.

As he set the hat down, he rubbed his hand distractedly over its hard plastic shell. He’d told Spike he was going in today, some Saturday grunt work for the extra money. He wasn’t sure when lying had started coming so naturally to him. Possibly when waking up wrapped around a naked vampire had become the norm, but he knew it was probably earlier than that. Saying the lies out loud was the recent thing.

And if the Saturday grunt work had been dropping Dawn off at Janice’s and slipping her $50 to forestall any questions before heading back to the Summers’ house to sit on the sofa with Tara and watch Willow fact-check and re-fact check, that wasn’t so much lying as implying, right?

Xander looked up as the bedroom door opened and Spike walked into the room, fully dressed in jeans and t-shirt. Spike paused, his hand on the doorknob, and then he narrowed his eyes, frowning.

Xander felt guilt twist in his gut and his fingers clenched around the hardhat, his nails scraping the plastic. _He knows! He knows!_

When Spike said nothing and just headed for the kitchen, Xander relaxed a bit, rolling his eyes at himself. He was so tired of feeling that white hot flash of fear every time Spike frowned or grimaced or looked like his jeans might be too tight. Sometimes it was all he could do not to blurt out, _Look we’re bringing Buffy back, so you just go ahead and steal some flowers and brush your blood breath, or whatever you’re gonna do, and I’ll go hold the urn for Willow and we’ll get our Slayer back, okay? By the way, she’s never going to want you back in a million years, and I’ll be damned if I’ll stand around and watch you chase after her while I_… But then Spike would grin or the jeans would come off and Xander would forget he’d ever thought Spike was thinking of anyone but him in the first place.

Xander rapped his knuckles thoughtfully against the hardhat as he listened to Spike bang around in the kitchen. _Okay, if Spike still didn’t know and – yeah, hello, paranoia, my old friend – what’s with all the silent? _

“Got something in the post, pet,” Spike said, his voice silky soft, and then a postcard was flipping from his careless fingers toward Xander’s head.

Xander ducked, his hand coming up quickly and catching the card as it fluttered to the table. He looked down at the card, puzzled at the image of white horse carved into a hillside, the printed script beneath it reading Westbury White Horse.

Xander frowned, flipping the card over. He drew in a breath as he looked at the postmark and the neatly written signature, and looked back up at Spike.

“Did you read it?” he asked, rubbing a thumb over the glossy front of the card.

Spike shrugged as he opened the microwave, turned the mug, and set the timer again.

Xander turned the card over, looking again at the shape of the horse, stark white and filling an entire hillside. “Does this mean something?” he mumbled.

“Could mean she still thinks you’re her white knight,” Spike answered, his back to Xander, his arms braced on the countertop, the muscles in his back and arms rigid. “Could be that, since that horse was carved to signify a battle victory, she feels she’s the winner now. Or it could just mean that she’s in sodding Westbury. Read the card, you git.”

Xander slowly turned the card back over, staring at the neat, evenly spaced printing until the marks formed actual words.

Xander,

Giles said I should write and let you know that I am well. I am well. I had hoped when Giles told me that you thought that he and I had…Xander, how could you? I’d hoped that you’d figured out what you want, but it obviously isn’t me, as the lack of phone calls and incredibly illogical cards like this one suggests. Despite everything, I hope you’re happy, Xander. You can be a good man, you just have to stop being so afraid, and yes, I mean afraid, and I’m not talking about slaying. I’m still more angry than sad. I thought you’d like to know.

Anya

Xander let the card drop to the table and looked up at Spike, who still stood with his back to him, the mug lifted to his lips.

“You read it.”

Spike turned around, his eyes on the mug in his hands. “Did not.”

“Yes, you did,” Xander said, irrational anger filling him as he rounded the table, stopping a few inches from Spike. “You read that, when you knew it was from her, that it was personal.”

Spike lifted a brow and shrugged lightly. “Thought we didn’t have any secrets, anymore, love,” he said, his voice bitter, deepening as he lifted the mug to his lips again.

Xander’s throat tightened and he shook his head, turning away.

“_Despite everything, I hope you’re happy, Xander_,” Spike said, his voice lilting, sing-song as he approximated Anya’s voice.

“Shut up,” Xander muttered, his back to Spike, muscles tense, hands shaking with anger. Fear. Guilt.

“Sweet girl,” Spike murmured, his voice close as he neared, easing behind Xander, his hands lifting and then gliding over Xander’s shoulders, down his arms. “Just wants to make sure you’re happy. Noticed she pointed out that she’s not getting up to anything dark and damp with old Rupert." Xander watched the card flutter to the floor as Spike swept it off the table. "Printed her address all nice and legible like, too. Lettin’ you know where she is, where she’ll be waiting when you stop,” his voice lowered, the words just breaths against the back of Xander’s neck, “getting,” his mouth opened, his teeth just grazing skin, “scared.”

Xander spun around, his eyes wide. “You’re jealous.”

“Am not,” Spike countered, his eyes cutting away.

Xander stopped, frozen by a flash of something he couldn’t identify, something that straightened his spine and made him feel… it was _satisfaction_. Spike _was_ jealous and Xander could see it in his posture, in his face, in the way slim, pale fingers were clenching at his sides. Xander paused, and thought about what he was going to say. Time was short, and events were going to start accelerating soon, like a snowball at the top of the hill, gathering momentum. This could be the last…something.

He reached up and caught Spike’s chin, feeling the ivory curve of bone under the skin against his fingers. “Not scared right now, Spike,” he said. It was a lie – he _was_ scared. Scared of being found out, scared of what was going to happen when Spike saw Buffy, scared that whatever was between them was going to melt away in the heat between Slayer and vampire and normal humans were going to get left on the fringes again. He was scared of words he couldn’t and wouldn’t say, feelings he couldn’t express, loss he couldn’t imagine. But if Spike saw the lie, he gracefully ignored it and neatly changed the subject with a searing kiss.

Xander parted his lips, letting all of the fear and anger, regret and doubt, be swallowed in the kiss. His eyes slid closed as he reached for that warm, safe place where there was no pride, no uncertainty, just this white hot feeling. But everything was still so real, the blood tang of Spike’s tongue, the rasp of their cheeks against one another, the light filtering through blinds and his own closed eyes.

Desperate, his fingers tightened on Spike’s jaw, sealing their mouths together and then running his hand down Spike’s back in a rough, restless rhythm, nails scratching one moment, fingers stroking the next.

And Spike arched to meet the surge of Xander’s body, hardness meeting hardness in a way that was everything it should be, and in a way that was no different than any time before. But behind Xander’s closed eyes, beneath lips that hid their tremble in the unforgiving way they ground into Spike’s, there was no rest in mindless want, no escape from the words he tried to sear into Spike’s flesh with every brush of his hands. _I’m sorry._

Spike's hands rose up to grip Xander's shoulders, and the restrained strength there just made Xander shake harder. It made Xander feel like a puppy confronting a German Shepherd - he wanted to lower his head and roll over and show his belly, wanted to submit to Spike's strength. He wondered if Spike felt it, if his instincts were screaming at him to _take_ as loudly as Xander's were telling him to _give_. And he wondered if Spike could read his mind when he unsealed their mouths and dropped his face down to Xander's neck and closed his teeth against the warm, sweaty skin there.

Xander’s head fell back, his eyes still closed, hands easing slowly up Spike’s back to his neck, closing around smooth skin, pressing Spike’s lips deeper into his flesh. He swallowed, feeling Spike’s mouth open around his skin, feeling the way they just sort of…danced around each other, hesitant, both asking, neither answering.

Everything in Xander felt rattled, unable to find that peaceful, easy feeling, but still reaching for it, and Spike’s mouth on his skin was so real, and he knew what it meant. What he was asking for, what Spike was offering. What it meant each time he tried to hide inside the very thing he was trying to run from. That being with Spike was feeling safe and hidden, but still stripping him down to the bone.

It was an insane sort of logic, but a reassuringly familiar one. The same sort of logic that lead to Slayer suicide; leaps away from emotional pain and into the comfort of physical ones.

He arched his neck slightly, encouraging the bite, encouraging Spike. Fangs descended and skin parted and then there was the rush of heat, of liquid, that hummed straight to his cock and muddled his head. But even that wasn’t enough, and he was still standing in his living room, a vampire in his arms, fangs in his throat, a hand roughly palming his erection as another stroked his cheek softly.

His lashes fluttered as Spike’s head lifted, a brief glimpse of blood flecked lips before Spike’s tongue flicked out, licking it away. Xander closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against Spike’s, breath shuddering in his chest.

“Xander?” Spike asked warily, starting to pull away.

Xander tightened his arms, holding them together. The biting was something new, and they didn’t do it often, and it was always over as soon as it began. Beyond their first realization that Spike could actually do it, if Xander offered, they’d never discussed it. The fact that it was never discussed was never mentioned. Why would it be? It was just the latest in a long line.

Spike was lax in his arms, which should have been distracting in itself, because holding Spike usually meant trying to _hold_ Spike while he twisted and slithered beneath Xander, hands and mouth everywhere at once. Xander lifted his head, looking at Spike who stood still against him, eyes closed and jaw tight. Waiting.

Waiting for Xander to lose himself and give in, so that Spike could take control, knowing that he was wanted, that he wouldn’t be pushed away. _Sometimes men just fuck_, Xander thought, _but never us_. Too much between them to let it just be release, and too much unsaid to let it be anything else.

He felt Spike shift slightly in his arms, lips brushing against his jaw as Spike pulled back slightly, looking at him, face guarded but eyes questioning. Xander answered by dropping to his knees, and tugging Spike down to join him. He lifted a hand that was shaking only slightly to the middle of Spike’s chest and pushed, following him back until Spike lay on the floor with Xander above him.

Xander braced himself over Spike, looking down at him, eyes darting from Spike’s eyes to his lips and watched as those lips parted and Spike grinned lazily. “Wanted to top, love, all you had to do was say…”

Xander ducked his head, his mouth covering Spike’s. He kissed with eyes open as long as he could, and then when Spike groaned into his mouth, Xander let his eyes slide shut. He focused on the slide of Spike’s tongue against his, the hand that fisted in his hair, and then let himself give over to the kiss, holding nothing back. No thoughts of forgiveness or forgetting as he memorized each curve of lips, tongue and teeth. No thoughts of hiding as he gave in and let himself feel everything, the fear, the anger, and the pain, and then gave it over to Spike, who arched into it, accepting it as need, relishing it as want.

Xander lifted his head, looking down into eyes that met his fearlessly, and then he covered Spike’s body with his own, hands reaching to tear impatiently at clothes that were suddenly too concealing, too separating. Spike reached above his head, his hands impatient as they fumbled in pockets, and then they were joining Xander’s and rubbing slickly.

Xander leaned down and kissed Spike again, softly, without need or want, and then he eased back, joining their bodies as their eyes met again.

And he realized this was the one time he didn’t want to get lost.

* * *

“You know, this whole ‘babysitting’ thing is starting to get kind of old,” Dawn called from the kitchen. “Willow and Tara said they’d only be at the library for a couple of hours, and it usually doesn’t take Xander that long to mow.” Her voice got louder as she neared. “So you totally don’t have to stay. If you’re bored.”

Spike settled back into the sofa, looking up and forcing a smile as Dawn walked back into the room. “I’m not, and I do.” He cleared his throat, fingers drumming as she stared down at him. “So, what do you fancy, Bit? Game of Rummy?”

Dawn made a face. “Not unless you promise no cheating.”

Spike’s eyes widened, the picture of innocence. “Taught you everything I know about cheating. You should be able to suss out when I’m…”

Dawn rolled her eyes, dropping down on the sofa next to him. “Holding cards, yeah. Using vampire senses to hear my heartbeat speed up when I have a good hand? Unfair.”

Spike smirked, reaching for the deck of cards. “You’re the sneaky one. ‘M sure you’ll figure out a way to get a better poker face.”

Dawn stared at him. “It’s Rummy.”

Spike shrugged. “Rummy face, then.”

Dawn shook her head. “Nope. Not tonight. Tonight, I have,” she leaned forward, gesturing to the coffee table in front of them, “pizza you won’t eat, soda you won’t drink, and,” she said, lifting a tape box and waving it, “a movie you won’t watch.”

Spike grabbed at the box she was waving in his face and turned it over, looking at the title and smiling slightly. “That’s where you’re wrong, love. _Rebel Without a Cause_.” He looked up at Dawn, “I think somebody planned this.”

Dawn shrugged lightly, grinning.

Spike looked back down at the movie. “James Dean,” he murmured, rubbing a thumb over shiny plastic of the case. “_Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse_. Not the most original idea, you know, but he was on to something, there.”

“Willow and Tara said he’s like, some kind of gay icon.”

Spike dropped the movie onto the seat between them, looking away from her. “Yeah?” he mumbled indifferently as he reached for his cigarettes.

“Wouldn’t know it to look at him,” Dawn said, not taking her eyes off of Spike. “He’s all tough with his…jacket and his cool hair and his cigarettes…”

Spike dropped his lighter onto the table, turning to look back at Dawn. “Something you want to tell me, Niblet?”

“Something you want to tell _me_?” she answered, blinking at him.

Spike reached for the movie cassette, smiling tightly. “Not a bleeding thing I can think of,” he said, standing and walking over to the television. He bent over, muscles tense as he punched the buttons on the VCR and watched the lights blink as it came on. He ripped open the case and slid the tape into place, hitting play and then standing there, staring as the title screen came up.

“Wow,” Dawn said, “look at you, working the technology.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning to grin at her, “Xander’s got --" he stopped abruptly, jaw tightening as she grinned at him.

“Xander’s got what?” Dawn asked, her grin widening. “Big, poofy lips?” she asked, puffing her own lips out. “Long, swoopy eyelashes? Totally squeezable a--”

“Dawn!”

“Abs?” she giggled, giving him a leer with a lifted brow that was just missing a scar.

“Think I liked you better when you were all weepy and mopey,” Spike muttered. Dawn’s face immediately darkened, her eyes falling to her lap. Spike closed his eyes, sighing. “Didn’t mean that, love. I just…” he walked back over to her, perching on the edge of the sofa. He reached out for her, and then drew his hand back, shaking his head and looking away. “Just can’t believe they told you, is all.”

Dawn snorted, lifting her head. “Oh, yeah, that happened. Willow and Tara _so_ sat me down and gave me the ‘sometimes two guys like each other in a special way’ talk. _Right_.”

Spike looked back at her, frowning.

She shrugged, leaning back and crossing her arms. “I might have been outside their room the other day, looking--”

“Lurking,” Spike interrupted pointedly.

“_Looking_,” she said with a quick glare, “for my shoes, when Willow was telling Tara that she saw you and Xander. Kissing. Each other.” She stopped, looking at Spike uncertainly.

“Yeah?” he said, slowly.

“Kissing,” she repeated firmly. “Each other.”

“Huh,” Spike said, reaching for the remote and turning up the volume. He leaned back against the cushions, staring at the television.

“Well?” Dawn demanded, grabbing the remote from his hand and hitting mute.

“Well, what?” Spike sighed, looking at her. “Sounds like you already got the story. I’m sure Red painted all the strokes broad enough,” he said bitterly.

Dawn didn’t answer for a moment, her fingers fiddling with the hem of her skirt. “So why didn’t _you_ tell me?” she asked finally, her eyes on the movie playing silently in front of them.

“Not the sort of thing we talk about is it, pet?” he said, giving her a wry smile. “And not something we’re gonna start,” he added, turning his attention back to the television. He could watch it silently if she could.

“Do you…love Xander now?” Dawn asked carefully, all traces of teasing and teen curiosity over vampire/Scooby kisses gone from her voice.

Spike’s head jerked, and he closed his eyes, his fingers tensing on his knees, digging deep and grinding bones together. “Dawn,” he sighed finally, “sometimes it’s not about love.”

She paused, tilting her head to look at him closely. “It usually is for you.”

Spike stilled, looking at her, and knowing that anything he said would let her into places she didn’t need to be, and places he didn’t need to revisit. The memory of Xander’s lips still burned on his, and it was a feeling he didn’t want to lose by sharing it. Even with himself. He shook his head slowly; then turned away from her.

“So you don’t love Buffy anymore?” she asked, her voice cracking on the last, and Spike stiffened at the pain in her voice. He swallowed, knowing that he had to answer _that_, and finding the words for her when he wasn’t sure of the answers himself was just the first in the long line of wrong with this conversation. Cursing the fact that he couldn’t hit her or kiss her to make her shut up, he turned and looked into her eyes, his voice quiet.

“_Nothing_ will ever change how I felt about Buffy, Niblet. But you know how that was, what that was. Nothing in it for her, nothing real, anyway.” He winced at the dull tinge of pain that always accompanied that admission, whether spoken or not, but the edges were blurred, somehow, and its acknowledgement somewhat easier to swallow.

“But you and Xander, that’s real?” her voice still quivered, but her eyes were dry, as if she had determined to be the grown up in this situation, and see it through until her questions were answered.

“It’s…complicated, Bit,” Spike said, reaching for his cigarettes again and suddenly wishing that Willow kept something stronger in the house than herbal teas.

“Complicated,” Dawn laughed shortly, nodding. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t get complicated, since the rest of my life has been _so_ easy. I just dream every night about memories that never really happened and get pissed off at a dad I’ve never really met and spend the day with a robot that looks just like the sister who died… for me. For _me_: the key that doesn’t fit anything. Yeah, you’re right, Spike – complicated. Not something I’d _ever_ understand.”

Spike stared at her, mouth working silently. _Well, that was…eloquent_, he thought, _if sarcastic and cruelly honest and vaguely reminiscent of…hmm, seems someone’s copying more than the brow lift._

Dawn shrugged, falling back against the couch and lifting the remote, clicking the sound back on. “Whatever. If you’re not gonna tell me about illicit Xander smooches, we can just watch the movie.” Neither of them turned to look at the television, though, and then Dawn drew a deep breath. “Or you could always tell me what _else_ is going on.”

Spike blinked, frowned, and then blinked again, looking at her. Dawn’s teenage rapid-fire mood swings were second only to Dru’s, and he was a few years out of practice following those. “You’re losing me, Bit,” he said, shaking his head. “Could have been the use of ‘smooches,’ but, again, we’re not goin’ down that road. There’s an ‘else’?”

Dawn rolled her eyes, and Spike watched, confused, as her entire body seemed to vibrate with an unspoken, _duh_. “You know, the conversations that stop the minute I walk into the room? Those _looks_ that Tara and Willow give each other that aren’t anything like the ones they give each other before they sneak upstairs and turn the stereo up really loud. The way Xander looks at Willow sometimes and then sees me watching him and says, ‘gotta go’ immediately and walks out without saying goodbye? The way all of you--"

“Careful with who you include, Dawn,” Spike interrupted, his voice low. “Kinda persona non grata myself around here, you know?”

“But I know there’s something,” she continued, waving that aside, “I might have been born almost yesterday, but I’m not blind. Or deaf. I’ve lived in Slayer Central long enough to know ‘planning’ when I see it. The secret meetings, spell and research books everywhere, doors that close suddenly whenever I walk down the hall. And all of you…” her eyes widened. “No, not you.” She stared at Spike. “Not me, not you. Just them.”

Spike looked back at her, memories clicking. Xander’s silences, the strange looks that he’d just chalked up to the boy working his way through the new living arrangement. But he’d blather on about their ‘arrangement’ whenever Spike got him worked up into it. Then patrolling with Willow and waiting for her to threaten, to at least question, for fuck’s sake, but nothing. Like it didn’t matter. Like he and Xander weren’t worth her attention because there was something more.

The way Xander had been today, greedy and grasping, and not with guilt over demon girl like he’d thought. And that last kiss, wasn’t just giving in, or acceptance. It had felt…final.

He focused on Dawn, on those too old eyes in that too young face. He leaned forward, arms resting on thighs as his hands clenched together. Fear and anger warred, and his throat worked as he forced the words out, trying to let her know the anger wasn’t directed at her. “What else do you know, love?”

* * *

Xander walked in a slow circle in front of the grave, his hands pushed into his pockets, his eyes on the ground. He heard a rustle in the darkness and looked up, expecting Willow and Tara and fearing Spike, but there was nothing, only wind and expectation.

He lifted his hand, peering at his watch. 11:45. Fifteen minutes ‘til midnight, ‘til another day began. Another Sunday here in this place with its scents of grass and earth and week-old flowers that wilted and faded against the stone but never had a chance to die before they were replaced, whole and new.

He turned and looked down at the headstone, his breath tightening. “This is it, Buff,” he whispered. “No turning back now. Even if we wanted to,” he finished, his voice trailing off. He reached down, rubbing his hand over the top of the stone, his fingers curling around it tight. “Willow says all I have to do is show up and believe. Funny thing is,” he said, his voice husky, “I think this would be the one time I’d listen if you showed up and told me to leave before I got hurt.”

“Xander?”

He jerked, turning around, heart in his throat and strangling the breath that tried to force its way out.

Willow and Tara stood in the clearing, their hands full of candles and jars and other things that said that this was no dress rehearsal, no game of ‘what-if,’ but the real deal, and things were about to play out whether he was ready or not.

Xander ducked his head, brushing the grit from the headstone off of his hands. He looked back at Willow, started to speak, and then really _looked_ at Willow and let the words bubble forth, taking comfort in the lack of thought that it took to produce them.

“Wow, Will, workin’ your spellin’ clothes,” he said, nodding to her black and grey off-the-shoulder dress. He glanced over at Tara’s jacket and pink jeans, and then at his own button-down and jeans. “You didn’t say there was a dress code, but then, what _is_ the dress code for a resurrection? I think the last recorded one had this whole robes and sandals motif, and I’m not really a sandal sort of guy. You know – hairy toes…”

His voice died away as Tara stared back him with a look of amused confusion and Willow’s face just reflected…hurt. Right, solemn is the tone we’re going for. You’d think he’d have figured out by now when the inappropriate funny was actually going to have the desired relieved laughter effect and when it was just going to make him feel even more useless.

“Sorry,” he muttered, walking over to take the candle Tara held out to him. He risked another glance at Willow’s face, and it was still closed tight, tension radiating from her, but directed away from him now. _Believe_, he thought, _believe that Willow can bring her back, and that there’s nothing of the wrong in that. Dawn will be okay again, and Giles will come back, and everything will go back to the way it was, and I can go back to hiding in the mix again, hidden and unthinking and unthought of._

His hand trembled as he took the lighter Tara handed to him, lighting his candle and watching the flame sputter. He gripped the candle tighter, feeling like he was in a grade school Christmas chorus, in a time before candles had come to mean spells and vampires who couldn’t have light any other way and the way the light glowed against pale skin…

“Xander, do you have it?” Willow’s voice cut into his thoughts.

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing, his mouth dry as handed the lighter back to Tara and watched her light her own candle.

“What time is it?” Tara asked suddenly.

Xander loosened his death grip on the candle and checked his watch. “A minute ‘til midnight,” he said, his eyes going to Willow’s.

“Okay,” Willow said, kneeling, her fingers laced tightly around the urn she held in her hands. “Start the circle.”

Xander knelt at her side and started to point out that they were really in more of a triangle than a circle, but he’d gotten a D in geometry and figured that silence was probably his best option now. _Believe._

“Osiris, keeper of the gate, master of all fate, hear us,” Willow began, her eyes on the headstone. Xander’s eyes widened as he realized they were starting. _Starting_ starting, and shouldn’t Willow go through some sort of checklist and give Tara and him instructions? Was he really supposed to sit here and just _believe_? He squeezed his eyes shut, and then opened them again. He really needed something to _do_, something that would shut his brain up and distract him from…

He watched as Willow dipped her finger into the urn, lifting it to her forehead, her cheeks, painting bright stripes there. You didn’t fight with a Slayer and sleep with a vampire without recognizing the bright red that shimmered against Willow’s skin in the candlelight, dripped down her cheeks. _Blood_. Whose? And from where? And why did…oh, right, it always had to be blood. Fucked up Hellmouth logic? Check.

Willow kept speaking and his candle and Tara’s quivered along in time to her words. She poured the contents - _blood_ \- of the jar on the ground, her voice firm, commanding in the way it had echoed in his head, whispered in his dreams, all summer long.

“Accept our offering, know our prayer,” she said, voice gasping a bit on the last, and then her arms went rigid, her breath labored. Unseen blades cut into her arms, the flesh falling open, blood welling beneath.

“Willow!” Xander cried out, reaching for her.

“No!” Tara said, stopping him. “She knew she would be tested. This is what’s supposed to happen.”

Xander fell back, watching as Willow centered herself, her voice calm again, calling on Osiris, demanding that Buffy be allowed to cross over. And then her back jerked, her jaw lifting as these…things…began to rise up in her arms, under her skin, rising across her chest, her throat.

_Oh, God_, Xander thought. _Willow…what have you done? How many lines did you have to cross, what kind of lies did you tell yourself to get…and the blood, the blood._

“She needs help,” he said, forcefully, looking at Tara.

Tara shook her head, her eyes wide. “She said not to stop, that once…”

“Tara -- it’s _killing_ her!” he said, the candle in his hands shaking, hot wax splattering across his fingers, unnoticed.

Willow’s body shuddered, and she fell forward, gasping, her fingers clutching at grass that was longer, unruly, this week, because there was no need for him to mow, to tend, anymore. Her fingers gripped harder, blades of green breaking off and clinging to her hands as her body lurched, shaking as she moaned.

And then her mouth was opening, opening wide, and in the darkness, something slithered out. Past her lips and winding its way over her tongue, falling to the ground as she gasped and choked.

Xander’s throat felt squeezed shut, and he silently thanked God for it, because it sealed the way against the bile that rose up in it. _That was in Willow’s mouth_, he thought, and choked again, looking down at the snake that blinked and then slithered away from them, unconcerned with the horror it left in its wake.

Willow suddenly lurched upright, her back bowing as she was bent almost in half, and then snapping forward again, a red glow, like fire, like blood, encircling her, surrounding her, separating her from them.

Xander stared at her, at the blood on her arms, her face, the light that glared from her, highlighting her closed eyes, her clenched jaw. He glanced over at Tara and saw the shock on her face, the tears on her cheeks as she mumbled to him, to herself, “Just a test, just a test,” over and over. She hadn’t known. All of this -- and for what? And then something just…snapped.

Bringing Buffy back wouldn’t change anything or make everything all right again. His mind flashed to Buffy’s body on the ground, dead and broken, and to the look at Spike’s eyes as he had stared at her -- dead and broken. Buffy wouldn’t have wanted this, any of this. If she had, if this were right, Giles would be standing with them, reassuring them, explaining why Willow had to go this way, take this path. And Spike would be next to him, his hand in Xander’s, at least for a while, both of them finding the courage in each other to face Buffy’s return, no matter what it meant. United as before, like they had been, before Buffy had shattered them apart when her body shattered onto the ground.

Instead, this secret, this _plan_ had torn them apart farther than before, forcing its way between him and Willow, crawling into the spaces between him and Spike, causing Tara to turn a blind a eye to magic she couldn’t believe in and making the _mission_ \-- if they even still believed in it -- meaningless.

Without Buffy, they fought by rote, with trained responses, feet moving toward cemeteries and dark alleys because it was what they did, no thought to what any of it meant. There was no higher purpose, no greater good, nothing in their destinies that commanded them to do it. And bringing Buffy back changed that…how? Following a leader? Willow had lead a tighter team than Buffy had ever imagined, more equal, more even. If bringing her back meant restoring a friend, easing the pain…what right did they have to do that? How were they any different, any more special than others who had lost, others who had died? If it meant the return of the Slayer…what did it accomplish but counting the minutes until she died yet again, the victim of a violent life, a causality of her own destiny? And then…what? They brought her back _again_? Cycling over and over until one day, maybe, none of them cared anymore?

“Willow, stop.” And that was his voice, weary and resigned, and so quiet that she actually heard it over the roar of the light and her own groaning.

“Xander?” Tara’s voiced quivered.

“Stop, Willow. Now,” he commanded, tossing away the candle and standing, facing her as she shook and shuddered beneath the onslaught of magic so dark, so powerful it was ripping her apart.

“Xander,” she gritted out from clenched teeth, forcing herself to speak, “_don’t_. Need you,” she grunted, her body snapping again. “You have to believe…”

“I believe, Willow,” Xander said, swallowing, his eyes dark holes in his face, his hands damp and trembling as they reached out to her, “I believe you think you’re doing what’s right by doing something very, very wrong. You believe you’re not going to have to feel the pain if you can do this, if you can make yourself believe we didn’t fail that day. That _you_ didn’t fail. But Buffy chose this, and you’re lying to yourself, to all of us, if you think that she didn’t.”

“Xander!” Willow cried, pulling back from his hands as they reached for her. “More important things now,” she gasped, jerking as the magic lashed around her. “Buffy. It’s _Buffy_…more important than…Spike. More real. Being…selfish,” she yelled through the pain.

“Selfish?” Xander said, staring, his heart seizing in his chest as he considered that, and then shook his head. “No. This isn’t about me, and whether you believe it or not, Willow, it’s not about _you_. Selfish was lying to Spike, to Dawn, to Giles about this. Why aren’t they here, Willow? Why can’t they take part in this beautiful,” he looked her up and down, the blood, the fire, “celebration of love?”

“Xander, stop,” Tara whispered behind him.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, not looking at her, his eyes on Willow. “Will, you know me, you know it’s killing me to see what you’re doing, and it’s killing me to say this. You’re calling me selfish, when you don’t know…” he broke off, shaking his head. “When I don’t know what I mean, what he means, what I feel. But this,” he said, waving his hand. “This isn’t love, this is _control_. And I didn’t saying anything, until it was too late, but I saw it, I heard it in everything, in all of us. This isn’t about Buffy and wanting her, or needing her, or missing her. This is you, trying to prove to yourself, to us, that no matter how much you say we need Buffy back to feel strong, to feel _right_, that, in the end, you can do the one thing Buffy couldn’t.” He stared down at her, his hand opening, grasping and then squeezing tight. “And I can’t believe in that.”

The urn was slippery in his fingers, blood and sweat mixing, and then it was grasped firmly and he watched it gleam in the bright light that surrounded Willow as he smashed it into the ground. Jagged edges burst away, cutting into his palm, the sound as it broke lashing into him. And then the light bled away, Willow slumped forward with a cry and he stared at the broken bits that clung to his fingers, the blood on his hand dull in the single light of Tara’s candle.

He looked up into Willow’s shocked eyes, and then back to the blood in his fist, the shattered urn at his feet, and heard the silence of the grave around them. “Oh, God.”

And then he ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue from BtVS "Bargaining"  
> Parts of Scene 1 co-written with Yindagger (aka Secondverse or yin_again)


	16. Chapter 16

Spike watched as Dawn carefully turned the key in the deadbolt and then jiggled the doorknob a couple of times for extra measure. She paused, her hand on the door and Spike shifted impatiently, his eyes sweeping the dark, empty streets.

“Maybe we should wait,” Dawn said hesitantly, as she turned to look back at him. “They’ll be back soon, and we can just…”

“We can just what?” Spike asked harshly and then softened his tone at her look of surprised hurt. “They’ll only lie to us again, Dawn, and this time -– ” Spike broke off, shaking his head. “I’ve done enough sitting around, waiting to be led a merry dance. Besides, not really my style.”

She looked back at him silently, and Spike dropped his head, sighing. “Maybe you shouldn’t go, though. Not a bloody good idea, dragging you through the midnight streets of Sunnydale...”

“Why?” Dawn asked, matching his previous tone. “Because Willow and Xander might get mad that you didn’t lock me away and lie to me, too? No,” she said firmly, shoving the keys into her front pocket and marching down the steps. “I’m going.”

She stopped at the end of the walkway, looking uncertainly to her left and right. “So is the library on the Magic Box side of town or the mall side of town?”

Spike snorted, chuckling despite himself. “We really need to broaden your horizons, ‘Bit,” he said. He jumped the steps and walked over to join her, lighting a cigarette as he came. “After all, when I was your age --"

Dawn rolled her eyes. “When you were my age, a ‘mall’ meant getting gnawed on by bears.”

Spike nodded slowly, his eyes on her as he exhaled. “Yeah, those vast hordes of bear gangs plaguing lower London. I can still taste the fear.” Dawn glared at him and Spike’s smirk softened into a bitter smile. “Do you really think they’re at the library, love?”

“Maybe?” Dawn asked hopefully, her voice catching, and Spike’s eyes narrowed as a thought occurred.

Whirling away from her, he strode quickly around the house, his boots thudding as he broke into a run.

Dawn gasped a startled, “Spike?” and then sprinted after him.

In the dark behind the house, Spike tore open the shed door, and they both stared at the lawn mower, cold, clean and _there_.

“Well, now we know someone’s bloody well not where he’s supposed to be,” Spike muttered, fingers clenching around the thin door until it creaked. He looked back at Dawn, his lips drawn and tight. “So what do you think first? The Bronze or the magic shop?”

Dawn’s eyes lit up. “The Bronze,” she said immediately, a gleeful half-bounce accompanying her answer even in the face of Spike’s barely repressed fury.

“This isn’t a day trip with Uncle Spike, love,” Spike said, flinging the door away so that it wrenched against its hinges and slammed into the side of the shed, the wood shuddering and splintering. “We’re supposed to be pissed off.”

Dawn sobered, looking down at the lawn mower that leant truth to every suspicion. She drew her foot back, kicking it viciously. “Getting there.”

* * *

Willow’s fingertips brushed against the jagged edges of the broken urn, uncaring as blood welled behind each touch. She lifted her hand, staring but unseeing, and then reached down and curled her fingers in the grass. The red fluid fell against the green, shining in the low light and then darkening, losing its luster as the earth absorbed it.

“The urn’s defiled,” she said flatly, her eyes on the ground.

“Willow,” Tara said cautiously as she knelt down next to Willow.

“Defiled,” Willow said louder, her hand reaching back to scatter the pieces over the grave. “Broken.” She stared at the shards as they spread out in a meaningless pattern. “By Xander.”

Tara reached out, her hand soothing against Willow’s arm. “Willow, we can --"

“Get another one?” Willow laughed sharply, the sound grating and harsh as it was forced from her sore and swollen throat. “There isn’t another. You know that.”

Tara’s hand retreated. “I was going to say still catch up with Xander.”

Willow turned to face Tara, her eyes wide, tears falling faster. “For what? Tara – we failed. _Failed_. There is no going back.” She swiped her hand across the grave, and the pieces scattered further. “I can’t fix something that was broken when _everything’s_ broken.” She looked down at her hands, at the scratches, the cuts, that made everything real, able to feel the pain for the first time as she clenched her fingers together. “We failed,” she said again, seeing if she could make herself feel that, too.

“Maybe we were supposed to,” Tara said, her tone even but her hands shaking in her lap as she clutched them together, held away from Willow. “Maybe the fates set all of that in motion, stopping us from invoking forces that we have no right to.”

“The fates,” Willow repeated dully. “Working through _Xander_.”

“Because they should only work through you?”

Willow’s head jerked, her lips falling open, trembling. “Tara! You’re saying this was _my_ fault?”

“No! I…” Tara moved closer, wincing as her knee landed on one of the broken shards. “I’m saying…what Xander said, a lot of it made sense. A-a-bout why we were doing this. The reasons -- it doesn’t matter if it was about Buffy or The Slayer -- maybe our reasons weren’t what we wanted them to be. Don’t you think…”

“Think!” Willow cried as she jerked from Tara, her hands splaying out on the grave. “I can’t _think_ Buffy out of this hell, Tara. I couldn’t _reason_ her out. There was only one thing I could do -- and now it’s gone. Because Xander thought it was wrong.” The final word grated as she said it, flakes of obsidian; cutting deeper than slivers of glass beneath her hands.

  
Tara stared at Willow for a moment and then slowly got to her feet. “Because it _was_ wrong.”

“Why is it wrong?” Willow asked helplessly, and then her voice quieted, becoming small and lost. “What kind of world _worth_ dying for asks for that kind of sacrifice? Where were the fates to stop Glory? Oh, wait,” Willow said with a dark smile, “they had Buffy for that.” Her smile trembled away as she bit her lip and then looked back at Tara. “In a world that allows vampires, and demons, and death, why is trying to do one good thing so wrong?”

Tara looked down at her sadly. “Because witches aren’t allowed to alter the fabric of life for selfish reasons. It makes us no different than them.” She crossed her arms over herself tightly. “But what we were doing didn’t have anything to do with witches. It was all about being human. About needing and wanting something we couldn’t have any longer. It was … selfish, Willow.” Tara looked surprised at her words, though her tone was unyielding. “It hurts. And it’s awful. But we aren’t children, and you know why this is wrong.”

“But there are precedents!” Willow said desperately. “If something _shouldn’t_ be done, then it _couldn’t_…” Willow stopped, her voice breaking. “God.” She stared at her hands for a long moment and then said, “All this time I thought I was doing everything right. I studied every text, referenced and cross-referenced every ritual, every ingredient.” Her mind flashed back to another green meadow, daylight hanging like gauze while she stained her hands red. “But I didn’t do any of it right.” She looked up, her eyes large and dark. “Not even you, Tara.”

“_We_ failed, Willow,” Tara said, stepping closer. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me, and I didn’t trust you enough to ask. Because my first loyalty was to you.” She raised her hand, her fingers trembling as they curved around the headstone. “Xander’s was to Buffy.”

Tara heard Willow’s choked gasp at that and fell to her knees again, taking Willow’s hands. “I made my choice, and I have to live with that. Xander couldn’t.”

Willow looked up at her. “I don’t know if I can, either.” Her fingers clenched on Tara’s, blood wet and slippery. “I thought if I could find the right answers…” Her voice dropped. “There are _always_ answers, and I can find them. It’s so easy for me, always, and if I did, then we wouldn’t have to face…_I_ wouldn’t have to face it. But I can’t. She’s gone. I lost her, really lost her, and now…” Willow’s voice broke as Tara’s arms went around her, “now I’ve lost Xander, too.”

“You haven’t lost Xander,” Tara murmured into Willow’s hair. “He helped you do this for…for Buffy, but he stopped it for _you_.”

“No,” Willow said, pressing her cheek against Tara’s, “even if he understands that I get that, I said all of those things about him…and Spike.” She took a deep breath, her body shaking. “He doesn’t forgive so easy, Xander. And I meant everything.”

Tara wound her fingers in Willow’s hair, mindlessly gliding and stroking. “Maybe we were wrong about that, too.”

Willow pulled back slightly. “But you said…when Buffy and Spike, and we thought, you said that was crazy; wrong.”

Tara smiled, her eyes thoughtful. “That was Spike -- a vampire. But this Spike…we don’t know. We watched him almost d-die for Dawn, and grieve for Buffy, and fight alongside us, but none of us ever asked him why. We didn’t want to know, so we didn’t ask.” She looked at the grave beneath them. “And isn’t that h-how we ended up here?”

Willow took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. Her face smoothed, the creases disappearing into an expression that was almost shy as she looked at Tara. “Can we go home? Please?”

“O-okay.” Tara stood, pulling Willow to her feet and letting her lean against her. They started slowly out of the clearing, and then Willow turned back, looking at the grave. “I don’t think I want to come back here for a while,” she said quietly. “I never let it feel like a place of peace, and I don’t think I ever can.”

They walked away, easing carefully through dark and silent woods, and behind them, one of the broken shards rolled off the grave. Then another.

* * *

“Dawn!” Spike ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, cursing. He held his head in his hands, his eyes squeezed shut, and then opened them again as he looked left and right again on the darkened street. “_Dawn_!”

They’d left the Bronze; no luck there. Not that Spike had really expected luck, and the Bronze had seemed too bloody obvious, but sometimes the most obvious was…

The last thing he remembered her saying was a laughing, “_Last call_. Just like they say on TV.” Her voice had lowered as she sang along with the song blaring from the sound system, “You don't have to go home but you can't stay here…”

And it had been like a gnat in Spike’s ear, her voice, her excitement, in the face of his anger, too much to deal with. His eyes had swept the emptying club again and again, looking for a guilty smile, an easy explanation. And the refrain from that song had blasted again and again. _I know who I want to take me home_.

He had grabbed her hand, dragging her out into the night as he silenced her questions with a frustrated snarl. “Just…stop! I can’t bloody _think_!” And she had wandered away, hurt. But he didn’t have time for her hurt. He didn’t have time for _her_, as she wavered from anger and concern to excitement and glee at being out on the streets at night. Past midnight, and on a mission.

And he had been standing there on the street, realizing that after the Magic Box and the Bronze, he had no real plan and that he had dragged her out in the middle of the night. Because what had mattered had been being _right_. They couldn’t have sat in the house and waited and just jumped the others with their suspicions when they walked in. Catching them in the act, whatever that act might be, was what mattered. Being right, and proving it. It’s all that ever mattered.

With Xander.

With him.

And he’d been searching for the words to tell her they were going back. Words that didn’t admit defeat and didn’t invite argument. But he’d hesitated, thinking. His mind offering every possibility and discarding it, because he could search from now ‘til sunrise, but nowhere made any sense. And not a scent in the air to guide him in the press of beer misted bodies that brushed past them.

But his eyes searched the dark streets again, and he strained to hear a familiar laugh, because this is where Xander _had_ to be; this time of night, this wicked little town. Not out somewhere in the deeper darkness, but here in the heart of things, the light. Where it was safe.

But there was no laugh rising over the sound of the crowd and no glimpse of broad shoulders swinging next to flipping red hair. There was nothing, here in the heart of things, which meant…

And then it was too quiet. He had stood there, too confused at first to be concerned, because she couldn’t be anywhere else. He was just missing something, not finding the gleam of her hair in the street lights in the shadow of that accursed tower looming over them, over everything. Blotting out the light.

And then he had chuckled. Because she had just wandered away. Not taken. Not dragged behind the Bronze, fangs at her throat. _She had just wandered away._

“Dawn!” his voice roared, his throat aching. He tried them all: Bit and Niblet and Dawnie and Dawn, until they were just a muddle of words, and the few people on the streets turned and looked, but none of them were her.

All summer, the one thing he’d had that proved he was…and now she was gone. All summer, even through the nightmares of Buffy falling and dreams where he had caught her and then she turned into Xander in his arms and shoved him away. The one thing he could do, could keep safe and _not_ fuck up; not fail. The one thing he’d done right.

And she had just wandered away.

“Dawn!”

* * *

_Ambition is a good servant, but a bad master._ And that was weird, because his mind seemed to be everywhere at once, voices overlapping, thoughts half-thought and crashing over each other, but that one thought kept rising above the rest. Something Giles had said a long time ago. About what, he couldn’t remember, and said to…had to have been Buffy. Couldn’t have been to him; not like he’d ever been going hell bent toward something – without thought, only purpose – and had to have Giles talk him down from the power trip.

Without thought. Hands reaching for Spike, lips crushing together because it stopped all words, all thought, everything. _It’s Buffy_, falling so easily from his lips, because they were just words, just agreement. His hand clenching around the urn, turning and smashing, no thought needed. Only purpose.

And no thought now as he walked, eyes on the ground, following the moonlight. The thoughts that he had left his car, his stake, _his friends_, alone in darkness buzzed hazily, but they were thoughts that led to others, so he left them alone. Just Giles’ half-remembered non sequitur humming pleasantly in his mind, the sound of leaves, sun cooked brown, crunching beneath his feet.

His hand stung, and he shook it impatiently, still trying to get the shape, the feel, of the urn out of his skin. The sound it had made wouldn’t go, either. It hadn’t been muffled at all by the grass and dirt it shattered against. Like it had hit something solid, something buried deep, and every crunch, every crackle, had sounded in the silence around them.

The sound had thudded in his ears, vibrating beneath his palm and crawling up, burying into the flesh beneath. Louder than the sound of Buffy’s body hitting the ground below. Funny how he couldn’t really remember that sound -- didn’t know if he’d even heard it. Too fast, too much at the time. And those were the voices that cried loudest in his mind. Spike yelling, _Buffy_, as they watched her fall and Dawn sobbing, _No_, too far away for him to hear, but he was sure he had.

Then the urn had shattered in his fist and he’d been right back there, standing at the base of the tower, Anya a solid weight in his arms, the harsh sound of Spike’s tears somewhere behind him. None of it real as he had stared down at Buffy, her face blank and lifeless and his just…blank.

No thought that day, no decision, just trusting that, as one event bled into the next, things would work out like they were supposed to, like they always had. And they _had_ \-- Buffy had beaten back Glory, and Spike had made it to the top of the tower and then…something had twisted when it should have flowed.

And just like Willow, he’d wondered. If there was some decision he could have made that would have stopped it…some thought that wasn’t considered that could have changed it. But unlike Willow, he’d known there was nothing they could have done, and he’d made himself deal with that.

He clenched his fist again, feeling them almost individually; the edges of the cuts and the slickness of the blood and the grit and the dirt and liking it, because at least that pain was real -- as real as the hard, cold fact that ever since the day he’d breathed life back into Buffy down in the Master’s lair, he’d been tapped out as a hero. That was his big moment, and after that, he was old news. He couldn’t have saved her, not on the tower, and not from the grave. She’s dead, and he might as well have pushed her as watched her fall.

His feet stumbled, leaving the whisper of moss and the snap of leaves for the thud of concrete. Dazed, he lifted his head, blinking as he looked up and right into a street light. He was at the top of the guardian wall that separated the woods from the service alley behind the Bronze. He jumped down, wincing as he thoughtlessly reached to steady himself with his cut hand.

He walked through the alley for the first time in five years without reaching for a stake. Reaching the end, he turned the corner with an automatic glance at the dark and silent Bronze, and then started out into the street.

Seeing Spike wasn’t a shock. Xander wondered if you could even feel shock when you were in shock. At least he figured this was shock; he certainly wouldn’t say no if someone were to wrap a blanket around him and dial 911.

He knew the exact moment Spike was aware of him, too, and he wasn’t sure if it was the thud of his heart that even _he_ could hear, or the blood that still dripped steadily down his fingers, or even something as pathetically human as the scuff of his shoes against the pavement; all that mattered was that had Spike stopped mid pacing and mumbled ranting and turned to look at him.

And then Spike was against him, their bodies slamming together, his hands curling around Xander’s shoulders with mindless strength, and only that strength keeping them on their feet as Xander stumbled back.

Spike’s mouth worked, his eyes meeting Xander’s and then darting away, closing tightly as a breath shuddered from his lips. _You who have no breath_, Xander’s own words whispered back at him through the steady hum in his mind, _I’m making you breathe…_

Spike swallowed and looked up at Xander again. “Dawn,” he choked, and then stopped, his jaw clenching.

Xander looked back at Spike mildly, as unfazed by Spike’s sudden torment as he had been by the apparition of him in the street. He shrugged one of Spike’s hands from his shoulder as he lifted his wrist, and then realized he’d lost his watch somewhere along the way. Didn’t matter; although this night was starting to feel endless, he could tell by the way the street lights still glared in the darkness that it was nowhere near day. Spike’s internal vamp chronometer must just be off, possibly due to the sudden psychosis that had him lurching against Xander again, his eyes wild, his hands clenching in a way that would have earned him an, _Ow, quit it!_ had Xander been able to feel anything.

“I remember what I said,” Spike muttered, more to himself than Xander. He looked up, eyes on Xander’s as he tilted his head, nodding. “The promise. To protect her. One thing I could do, have done. Just a moment away, yeah? A moment, and then she was gone.” He shook his head, his gaze falling away from Xander’s. “Just a moment’s lapse -- it doesn’t amount to betrayal.”

Xander jerked at hearing betrayal fall from Spike’s lips, and his mind cleared for a moment, _Ladies and gentleman, I think we have a reaction!_ bursting forth from the saner recesses, and then the numbness came back as he realized it wasn’t _his_ betrayal and therefore not worthy of notice.

He looked at Spike, his mind as expectant as his face was blank, content to wait in this bubble of numb to see what Spike did next, and if it would spark a reaction that felt like hanging around for awhile.

“Have to find her,” Spike said as his hands dropped from Xander’s shoulders. “Both of us now, we can -- ” his hand had closed around Xander’s and slid messily away. Spike lifted his hand, knowing the red gleam against his palm by touch, by smell, before it even had a chance to glisten in the low light.

“Xander?” And then Spike’s attention was _on_ him, for the first time really, all other worries, no matter what they might be, sliding away as Spike came back to himself and reached again for Xander’s hand, prying the fingers open. “Xander, what did you do?”

Well, there was no easy answer to that, was there? So Xander just looked back at Spike silently, as he eased his hand away and let it curl, closed, at his side.

“Xander?” Spike’s eyes were searching his, widening at what they found, or didn’t find, there.

Xander stared back at him, silent, realizing that this time it was completely possible to ignore the command in Spike’s voice, the insistence in his eyes. Oh, he _could_ answer; it seemed that he wasn’t endowed with the ability to pitch a coma when things had spiraled out of his control. Of course, that would have pretty much made him coma boy most of his life if it had been possible, so probably a good thing…

“Xander!” Spike’s hands were on his shoulders again, shaking him, the leather swirl of the duster snapping against their legs.

The slap, when it came, wasn’t unexpected. He kind of had Spike’s modus operandi down; what Xander did find surprising was that the only reaction it received was just that -- a mild bit of surprise at the lack of reaction.

“Christ,” Spike said, his voice sounding tired, lost, and then he was up close and personal again, his eyes boring into Xander’s. “I know you’re in there, Harris, and I don’t know what this is -- something you did, or something that was done to you, but you’re not the only one lost tonight. So, gonna get you off the streets, get Willow to see if she can poke around and find you in there, and you better hope she can and doesn’t have to send me in after you, ‘cause you do not want _me_ in your head.”

That earned Spike a slight twitch of Xander’s lips, which seemed to satisfy both of them, and then Xander let himself lean into Spike as he was led away. They were heading toward the Summers’ house, just as Spike had warned, but even that didn’t dredge up any worry. It seemed this whole disconnect thing just got easier as it went along.


	17. Chapter 17

Fear roared in Spike’s head and he attempted to shake it away. He hadn’t shown fear when he’d faced down three slayers, hadn’t let himself feel it any of the times Angel had tried to wring it from him, and he wasn’t going to let it dissolve him into a blithering mess now just because a lost slip of a girl and a scared, angry boy were forcing it from him.

Still, nothing short of dying was going to keep him from getting back to the Summers’ house faster than inhumanly possible. He hadn’t lost Dawn and he hadn’t forced Xander into crawling into his mind to hide. Wasn’t his betrayal, and fearing that it was wouldn’t change it. He’d kept his promises, now he just had to suss out a way to change the things he couldn’t control.

He looked back behind him to where Xander followed, the darkness of early morning obscuring everything but the blank shimmer of Xander’s eyes, the pale gleam of his fingers on Spike’s arm.

Spike slowed as the lights from the house broke from the trees around them. The porch was empty and silent, and Xander’s slow and careful steps to meet him thudded hollowly in the midnight quiet around them.

Spike’s hand closed over the door handle and some dim part of his brain registered the memory of Dawn carefully locking it, despite the easy way it turned in his hand. Xander started to drift away from him, and Spike reached out and fisted a hand in his shirt front. Xander swayed slightly, and Spike tightened his grip, jerking Xander back to him on one side and snapping the door handle cleanly in half with the other.

Spike grunted quietly and then shoved the door open, slamming it against the far wall as he strode into the foyer, dragging Xander behind him. The house lights were still on, flickering hope, but he couldn’t remember if Dawn had turned them off before they’d left.

“Dawn!” Spike glanced over at Xander, equally searching for and hoping not to a find a reaction to the undercurrent of terror shadowing the command in his voice.

Xander’s face remained blank, his eyes meeting Spike’s with the same dull sheen they turned on the rest of the familiar room.

Spike turned away, unable to read anything in that blank stare and afraid of how deep that emptiness went. Even at her weakest, Spike had always been able to read Dru's eyes, see the brilliance that danced just beyond, out of reach of the madness. Xander, however…

But he didn’t have time for this, any of it. No matter how deeply buried Xander was, or what had forced him to crawl in and find a place to hide to begin with, at least he was here, and whole, at his side. Let Willow sort him out, Spike nodded to himself, because there were other things, and morning was coming sooner than answers, leaving him with things he couldn’t change and forcing him away from the things he could.

“Dawn!” And he felt her, he knew he did, part of it human and half-remembered, the sense of a presence, and part of it something other – a knowing, and not just a hope, that she was here.

* * *

Xander felt Spike’s hand loosen on his wrist and he followed Spike’s gaze to the top of the stair where Dawn stood, looking down at both of them. She eased slowly down the steps, not taking them two at once this time, her steps slow and measured, eyeing them hesitantly.

Xander’s eyes lowered and he followed the scuff of her feet against the carpet runner. He felt Spike brush past him, tension even Xander could feel radiating as Spike stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up at Dawn.

“Thank God,” Spike growled, his hand closing around the banister, the wood creaking. “You…”

Xander heard the words thicken in Spike’s throat, and then Spike’s voice was rising, a blustering anger that Xander knew covered for something darker, something deeper.

“I could kill you,” Spike continued, his eyes not leaving Dawn.

“Spike,” she said quietly as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“I _mean_ it. I could rip your head off one-handed and drink from your brain stem.”

Dawn ignored Spike’s bluster and edged closer, stopping just short of him. They both stilled, looking at one another, and Xander watched as Spike’s anger seemed to go to a place somewhere so far beyond mere rage that it became an eerie sort of calm. Dawn lost her jittery, hesitant motion, transformed somehow, then reached out, resting a hand on Spike's sleeve.

They stood there silently for a moment, staring at one another, Dawn’s face calm and imploring, and Spike losing all tension and just easing into her touch.

Xander cocked his head, watching them as if this was some sort of performance they were holding for his benefit, their voices rising and falling with unheard words, eyes meeting in a way Xander couldn’t understand.

Free of all worry and understanding, he just stared at them, finding them almost strangers. Seeing for the first time the woman that Dawn would be someday, calm and sure. Spike dropping the armor he wore as easily as that coat, becoming just a man, unsure and unguarded. Looking at Dawn as if she had the answers to questions that had remained unanswered so long he’d stopped asking them.

Both so unaware of him that Xander edged closer, wondering idly if this was what it had been like with Buffy and Spike in those moments hidden from the rest of them. Spike needing someone to treat him like a man, and Buffy…

“Spike…Xander,” Dawn said, looking between them, and Xander’s head jerked toward her. Her eyes hadn’t really met his yet, she didn’t know about his bubble of numb, didn’t know what he’d…something wrong, something she wouldn’t…and then everything around them thrummed. Xander shook his head, hearing Dawn’s voice again, seeing Spike turn, his eyes finding Xander’s and the tension flowing back.

“Look,” she said softly, and Xander’s gaze left Spike, following Dawn’s up the stairway and…

_White. She was wearing white. Just like the first time he’d ever seen her – and the last_.

* * *

Spike tore his gaze away from Xander, sparing a glance toward the stairs where both Dawn and Xander stared, transfixed. “Yeah? Seen the bloody ‘Bot before…”

And then her eyes met his, and he knew.

Dawn turned away from him, her hand dropping from his arm and reaching for Buffy. “She's kind of, um...she's been through a lot...with the...death. But I think she's okay.”

Spike stared at two of them, his throat working, all of the things he’d wanted to say, to take back, to promise, rushing through him. _I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but...after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again...do something different. Faster or more clever. Dozens of times, lots of different ways...Every night I save you._

When the words came, they were deepened, rough and unplanned. “Her hands.”

Dawn’s hands fluttered around Buffy now, unable to settle, hesitant, as if touching Buffy would make her disappear. “Um, I was gonna fix 'em. I don't know how they got like that.”

Spike nodded slowly. “I do. Clawed her way out of a coffin, that's how.”

* * *

Spike’s eyes had never left Buffy, but Xander’s never left Spike.

At first he’d thought that Buffy was just part of his bubble universe, his mind letting him see the things he _wanted_ to see. A world where Buffy came walking back to him, and it was okay this time – none of the horror of his waking nightmares since the day Willow had promised she could make it happen. A world where Spike still stood by his side while they smiled up at Buffy, just happy to have her back and sharing a laugh at the joy bursting from Dawn’s face…

But Spike had stepped toward Buffy, the words, “Done it myself,” falling from his lips and then everything burst around Xander. It wasn’t Technicolor surround-sound, it was flat and human and real.

Dawn’s hair wild around her face, dirt-smudged and childish, not a woman on the brink, but a little girl who’d been given her greatest wish and terrified of losing it again. Spike, eyes wild and staring, focused on Buffy’s face and Xander had gotten his wish, too, lost in the mix again and unthought-of.

_Clawed her way out of a coffin._

Everything he’d risked, all the words he’d been afraid of saying all summer, staring down Willow and maybe losing her as he said them – and for this. It wasn’t some glorious return, Buffy rushing to hug him, knowing his grief somehow, and easing it.

Somehow, despite everything, they’d brought her back to life. Right where they’d left her – in her coffin.

He watched as Spike shook his head, taking another step toward Buffy.

“Um...We'll take care of you. Come here.” Spike’s hand hovered above her shoulder, and Xander watched it tremble and then drop away, gesturing her toward the living room and then nodding to Dawn. “Get some stuff, uh, mercurochrome, bandages.”

Dawn nodded and jogged toward the kitchen. Xander stared after her and then stood there, hearing everything now; Spike’s voice a deep rumble and Buffy’s answers quiet, the sound just a murmur.

Xander turned walked toward the door, his hand reaching for it and then staring dumbly at the broken handle. No choice, no escape, unable to lock himself back into his mind or unlock the door that lead away from this –

And then the door flew open and Willow rushed into him, her hands gripping his shoulders, her eyes bright as she stared up at him. “Is she here?”

Tara brushed past them, her movements quick and nervous as she stopped in the doorway of the living room, her breath leaving her in a rush. “Sh-she’s here.”

“Oh, Xander, it worked! It must have…I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, but it worked – Tara and I saw them, Dawn and Buffy – on the tower! And we ran and we yelled but they must not have heard us and then we weren’t sure…I tried to find you and tell you, but then we came here, just in case, and…” Willow’s words stopped abruptly as she looked at him, stilling.

“Xander.” She swallowed hard and stepped back from him slightly. “You were right. And, yeah, I know, easy for me to say now, but you were and I have to tell you – Tara and I talked and, god, Xander, I was so wrong, everything you said, and,” her eyes searched his, but Xander just looked back at her, silent and waiting.

“And I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I know that doesn’t…make up for…but I can make this right, I know I,” she sighed, dropping her gaze. “And I’m doing it again, huh?” She met Xander’s gaze firmly. “I don’t know if I _can_ make this right, but as long as Buffy’s okay, we can figure something out.”

She reached for his hand carefully; as if afraid he’d pull it back. “And what I said about you and Spike, I was wro-”

“Will,” Xander said quietly, reaching up to brush her hair back from her cheek. “It’s okay. You did it and…” Xander glanced back toward the living room. “Everything is just like it used to be.”

His hand fell away from her and he reached for the door, slamming it open and then walking out into the darkness.

* * *

“Buffy! Are you okay?”

Spike dropped Buffy’s hands as Willow and Tara ran into the room. He stood, looking down at Buffy for a moment and then glanced toward Xander, frowning when he found the foyer empty, the door hanging open.

He glanced back toward Dawn as she spoke.

“You knew she was back? How did you know?” Dawn stared at Willow and Tara, her eyes widening. “You did this…what did you do?”

Willow tore her eyes away from Buffy and turned a cautious gaze toward Dawn. “A…a spell. We did a spell. We didn’t think it worked…”

Spike's jaw tightened and he whirled away from them and headed toward the door.

“Spike, wait!”

Spike spun around, looking at Willow. His throat seized shut at the look in her eyes, bright and dancing; fear warring with happiness, with _pride_, on her face.

“You,” he said thickly, advancing on her, finding a dark joy in the way she immediately trembled and stepped back from him. “You green girl. The one who would smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

Willow shook her head. “Spike…what? No, I –”

“You shut me out,” he said carefully as anger coiled and the chip buzzed in warning. “You knew there was a chance that she'd…that she’d come back wrong. So wrong that you'd have...” Spike dropped his head and then glanced back at Buffy, silent and still between Tara and Dawn as they reached for her with careful hands. His voice lowered, anger restrained. “That you would have to get rid of what came back. And you knew I wouldn't let you. If _any_ part of that was Buffy, I wouldn't let you.”

“No!” Willow said quickly, casting her own look back at Buffy. “That’s not…” her voice grew small. “We just didn’t tell you.” She looked down at her hands. “And I know that was…wrong. That I should have. But I _couldn’t_, and I thought everything would be okay, that she once she was back, everything would –”

Spike shook his head, backing away. “Confess yourself to heaven – not to me. You think you know what you’ve done, what wrongs you have to make right. But you haven’t even…that’s the thing about magic, there’s always consequences.”

He reached the door and looked back at her. “And when sorrows come, they come in bloody battalions.”

* * *

Xander concentrated on the feel of the shovel in his hands, the wooden handle digging into his cut palms as he used the vague grey outline of the headstone to guide him in the darkness.

He looked down at the grave, and at the place where the ground opened. It wasn’t a large opening, but then, Buffy was so small…

Xander swallowed and looked away. Away from the overturned earth, scattered with bits of white satin lining that Tara had sewn so carefully and that Anya had helped him nail inside the coffin without a word of complaint.

He looked instead at the headstone. _She saved the world – a lot._ He couldn’t even remember which of them had thought of that, but he did remember that it had almost made Dawn smile.

He dropped the head of the shovel down, tapping against the shards of wood that poked up from the ground. _She clawed her way through that._ Three months of Sundays they’d stood at this grave, and the one time she’d really needed them to be here, they’d…no, Xander thought, shaking his head, _he’d_ let her down.

He stood over her grave, the shovel in his hands and feeling like time had slammed him back, back to the night he and Giles had dug it, knowing they were going to have to put Buffy in it, and away from them. Not knowing at the time that he’d come back here again and again, hiding from himself even with the others. The times alone when it served as a purpose; the one thing that he could still do for her now that there was nothing else. Others when he came just because it was her…or all he had left of her. And now, Sunday again, and it was just a hole.

Time slammed him back, taking away the grief that had dogged him each time he stood in this place. She was back, and all things had become new, nothing left but a hole, just as if this grief, this summer, had never happened. As if none of it had.

Xander lifted the shovel in his hands, forcing the tip of it down on the wood and shoving it back beneath the earth. The shovel rose again, dirt falling with a hollow sound back into the grave as Xander filled it.

The snick of a lighter sounded behind him, unnaturally loud in the silence and Xander’s hands tightened on the shovel handle. When Spike spoke, his voice was low and carefully measured.

“What are you doing?”

Xander’s eyes squeezed shut and he didn’t bother to turn around. He focused instead on the weight of the shovel in his hands and the sound of the dirt falling from it. “Fixing a hole.”

Spike chuckled, but it was a dirty sound, dark and strangled from his throat. “Well, I walked right into that one, didn’t I? So…” Xander heard the rustle of Spike’s duster behind him, leather boots creaking as steps grew nearer, “you’re back to talking to me, then?”

“Yeah,” Xander answered, with a humorless laugh of his own. “Sorry about that back there – just kind of…” he shrugged. “It was a thing.”

“Lot of that going on tonight,” Spike agreed.

Xander heard the leaves crunch as Spike moved around him, edging the sides of the grave and stopping just behind the headstone. Xander glanced up to see long, slender fingers curve around the rough hewn edges of the marble and drum against it lightly.

“You know, I think I figured it out,” Spike said.

Xander’s gaze left Spike’s hands and lifted slowly, his breath stuttering in his chest when he saw the dried tears on Spike’s cheeks, and the look of utter bitterness on his face.

“Willow didn’t want me to know, and you were my distraction, right?” Spike continued. “Took one for the team?” He lifted the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled deeply, his voice coming low and husky as he exhaled. “Well, I’ll be sure to tell them how sweet you took it.”

Xander wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the ability to laugh at that or the harsh, ugly tone it had as it left his lips.

“Right,” he said, nodding. “I was _your_ distraction.” He looked away from Spike, lifting and filling the shovel again. “You know, Spike, for someone’s who survived for over a hundred years by cunning and impulse alone, you’re surprisingly predictable. How very like you to run after me to get your…what? Pound of flesh? Instead of staying to...”

Xander’s voiced trailed away on words even now best left unsaid. He shook his head, his smile a bitter mockery. “You just don’t know how to be happy, Spike.”

Spike snorted. “Look who’s talking. Don’t see you all piled up with them back there,” he said with a nod toward the lights of town, “braiding hair and trading secrets.”

Xander looked away, the thought of curling up between Buffy and Willow at this moment unfathomable. Buffy alive and thanking them for everything they’d done to make that happen, and then finding out what he had…He looked back down at the grave, and the purple-black slivers of the urn that gleamed in the moonlight.

“You knew,” Spike said suddenly, the mocking tone dropping from his voice. “You brought her back and _you_ didn't tell me.”

“Well, now you know,” Xander said. He hid the wince that followed that, because of all the times he’d manage casual, to sound cool and unaffected, _this_ had to be it.

“All summer,” Spike said, his eyes not leaving Xander. “I worked beside you, patrolled, watched Dawn, listened to you and Willow blather on and on about how things were going to be now, how _we_ we going to handle them. Shared your flat, shared your bloody…”

Spike stopped and Xander sighed quietly, letting the shovel fall to the ground. “You’re just covering, Spike.” He looked up, meeting Spike’s angry glare. “Look me in the eyes, and tell me when you saw Buffy alive, that wasn't the _happiest_ moment of your entire existence.”

A muscle twitched in Spike’s cheek and his lips tightened, but his eyes never left Xander’s, everything he felt laid bare and open.

Xander’s eyes widened and then he stumbled back as Spike leapt over the headstone, boots crunching against the exposed coffin as he walked toward Xander.

“Guess I should have seen it, really,” Spike said as he reached out with a negligent hand and grabbed a fist full of Xander’s shirt, holding him there. “Knew there was something, of course, but I just figured that was you – letting go of the old ways and trying to find that darkness within. With me. Worried, too, all summer, ‘bout keepin’ a promise, protecting Dawn. ‘Til the end of the world,” he said with a soft laugh. “But it wasn’t just me keepin’ promises, was it? Crawlin’ out of my bed without a word and running to Willow, making your plans to bring her back.” Spike scoffed, dipping his head mockingly. “Slayer’s Loyal to the end.”

Xander wrenched out of Spike’s grip and shoved him away. “_Loyal_?” He spun around back to the grave, his hands digging through dirt and shards of wood until he found what he wanted. He held a piece of the urn in his fingers, the edges sharp and slashing into his hand. “Buffy didn’t do _this_, Spike.”

He flipped the chipped pottery toward Spike, smiling grimly as Spike caught it in the air. “That one was all me. Yeah, I knew. Willow told me, but that was after you and I…” Xander shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I knew, and I didn’t tell you, but that’s not the worst I’ve done.”

He nodded toward the grave. “I came out here with Willow and Tara tonight, lit the candles, made enough noise to wake the dead. All in the name of what was right – we had to bring her back, had to fix everything. Because Willow could. But you know what, Spike? I couldn’t.” He laughed bitterly. “I talked a good game, though, shoulda been there. All the reasons why it _wasn’t_ right, and not what Buffy wanted. But Willow still wouldn’t stop, because she had her reasons, and despite what we did or didn’t do, her heart was in the right place.”

Xander took a deep breath. “So I grabbed that,” he said, nodding to the shard in Spike’s hand, “and I smashed it. Slammed it into the ground, right where we put Buffy. And all along, I told myself it was the right thing to do. That lasted right up until the part where I couldn’t claw my way out of myself, like she had to from that grave. And you want to know why? Because even if they were the right reasons, and what we did was wrong, I knew deep down that part of me was doing it because of you.”

Xander looked up at Spike silently, swallowing hard. “Because if she came back, I’d have watch you crawl out of my bed without a word and run to her. And I have to live with that.” Xander licked his lips and then shook his head. “So I’m not the Loyal, Spike. I’m the fuck-up. But when we walked into that house and I saw her come down those stairs…” Xander’s jaw lifted and he met Spike’s eyes evenly. “Best fuck-up I’ve ever made in my life.”

* * *

Spike stared back at Xander and then looked down at the chip of pottery in his hand. He ran his fingers across a jagged edge as he turned it over, looking at the smooth, curved underside, still stained with blood. Knowing it for what it was; the dark magic rising from it almost a stench.

“You did this for me,” Spike said softly. He looked at Xander again and then flung the chip away, the sound of it as it shattered against the headstone causing Xander to jerk and step back.

“Well, at least now you’re telling your lies to my face,” Spike continued. He walked forward until Xander was forced to stop, his back between Spike and the open grave. “You did this for you,” he said, with a glance toward the grave. “A bit for her, maybe, but mostly for you. And you thought you’d never have to be man enough to tell me the truth of it, because I’m not supposed to be here, am I, Xander?”

Xander said nothing and Spike scoffed, “Not part of your plan, was it? I’m supposed to be…what? On bended knee before the Slayer, eyes cast down as I explain our little…dalliance as the truest expression of my grief?” Spike snorted.

“You love her.” Xander’s voice was dark and gritty and Spike hadn’t seen that mixture of pain and anger mar his face since the night the boy had shambled his way into a crypt and demanded whiskey for his troubles and ended up getting more than he’d bargained for.

Spike stepped back slightly and Xander continued, “Buffy. Can’t deny it, Spike, because you told me so yourself. ‘Never doubt you love,’” Xander said, laughing bitterly. “Guess I play things a little closer to the chest than you do, though, because you might not have known we were bringing her back, but I never doubted for a second what you’d do the moment we had.”

Spike stared at Xander incredulously and then lunged forward, grabbing Xander’s chin and kissing him angrily. It was a brief kiss, passionless in its intensity and so dry and spare that Spike licked his lips as he broke it.

“_That’s_ all I ever had of Buffy, you dim bastard,” he said, forcing Xander to look at him. “A kiss of peace – a kiss of payment. But you’d know all about that, right? Gave me the big payoff all summer.”

Spike chuckled, trying to force answers from the look of shock on Xander’s face, waiting for awareness to dawn and finding nothing in the darkness but doubt. “Don’t know what you thought it was like between me and the Slayer, but…shared your bed, Harris, and in the end, I guess Buffy _was_ the one that treated me like a man. Least she was honest about how little I meant to her.”

Spike swallowed hard. “She treated me like a man,” he repeated, looking away. “But you made me feel like one, and I can’t forgive that.”

“_One hundred forty-seven days yesterday, hundred forty-eight today_,” Xander quoted dully.

Spike’s head jerked and then Xander was on him, hands fisted into the collar of Spike’s duster, forcing Spike to look at him.

“Yeah, I heard you. Right down to the second, wasn’t it? You shared my bed,” Xander nodded, “counting down the days. Did you glance at the clock when it turned over midnight and ticked off another day while I was inside you? How about that, Spike?”

A slow smile spread over Spike’s face and widened as he saw that it caused Xander’s anger to waver uncertainly. “Yeah,” he said softly, “that’s it. There’s the man I was looking for.”

Xander’s hands loosened on Spike’s jacket, and Spike backed away, nodding. “Knew the exact day, the exact _hour_ she jumped. First ‘cause it was the single most painful moment of my entire existence,” he said with a pointed look at Xander. “But I don’t have to tell you that, mate, you were there. You know how that was. But what you don’t know is that something…changed. Shifted, like.”

Xander was a dim shadow against the pale glow of the headstone and Spike eyed him carefully. “Before the chip, I didn’t care about much,” he said simply. “Loved Dru, loved bein’ a vampire more. The thrill, the rush, the crunch. Loved being something other, not having to care. And then there was the chip…” he shrugged slowly and then reached into his pockets for his cigarettes. “And then there was Buffy. Soon as that was, though, she was gone. Become a vampire, you've got nothing to fear. But then I did. And that’s you, love.”

Spike lit the cigarette, drawing on it slowly and watching every expression that flitted across Xander’s face. “Never had to put much thought into loving Buffy, beyond the ‘oh, dear God,’ moment, that is. Tried to force it a couple of times, but never got what was I was anglin’ for. Got somethin’ else, though. Got her mum, her little sis, treatin’ me with respect. And sometimes her, too.” Spike smiled sadly.

“Coulda left once she was gone, you know. Except for a promise I made. Buffy dyin’ didn’t break that promise, only forced me to want to keep it. Keepin’ Dawn safe, and the rest of you lot just sort of fell in there. But then there _you_ were – eyes like holes, drillin’ into me, seein’ me. Wanting me,” Spike finished with a sigh.

Spike drew deeply on his cigarette and waited for Xander to speak. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this, or even how much longer he _wanted_ to do this. The anger at Xander’s betrayal was still a steady thrum, fists clenching and unclenching. But this was one _Why?_ he had to figure out, hear answered. Wouldn’t cost him anything he hadn’t already lost, either way.

“Should’ve stayed away, I ‘spose,” Spike continued lightly as Xander didn’t answer. He grinned slightly. “But you were just so much…fun, Harris. No matter how hard I pushed, you bore up and shoved back. And then you weren’t shoving me away, so I stayed. Pushed you hard, though, tryin’ to get you to find that darkness, the man beneath. Knew what you were runnin’ from, hadn’t wanted to feel it myself. All that bloody nobility Buffy seemed…seems to inspire. Caring’s a bitch, innit? So I watched you trying to break away from all of it, running from yourself and hiding with me. Because you could, and she was gone. But now she’s back.”

Spiked dropped his cigarette and crushed it into the ground beneath his feet. He looked up at Xander, brow arched. “Changes the game a bit, doesn’t it?”

* * *

Xander stood as he had, feet poised on the lip of the grave, and tried to play all of that back in his head. There was too much, though, and most of it felt like Spike was fishing for something. So he tried to pare it down, get the basics, _the meat_, as Spike would say.

All of the reasons Spike had let this happen, this summer, and despite the way things stood now, he realized it _had_ happened. Whether Buffy was back or not and all the wrongs and rights he’d done in making that so, everything Spike had outlined had happened between them. And Spike, of course, once again saw too much. Things Xander had kept hidden laid bare in Spike’s words – the fear and the guilty pleasures of this summer, and the joy at not having to be the heart of everything.

The knowledge that Spike knew Xander had been trying to hide in him, whether he knew everything Xander had been running from or not. And then clarity popped like just as he had earlier tonight from his scramble of fear when he’d seen Buffy walk down those stairs. Buffy was back…and Spike was _here_.

And once clarity decides to party, it evidently settles in for an all-nighter, because Xander reexamined that statement and stumbled back, almost pitching into the grave behind before Spike’s hand shot out to steady him.

“Buffy’s back,” Xander said, his lips falling open and his hands trembling at his sides. “Buffy’s alive.”

“Well, yeah,” Spike drawled slowly. He cocked his head, his expression inscrutable; as if this was the path least likely he’d expected Xander to choose. Spike nodded toward the boards that cracked under Xander’s feet as he gained his footing and backed away from the grave. “Not quite a rolled away stone, that, but as far as harbingers go, it’s one of the more obvious ones.”

Xander shook his head. “Buffy…I didn’t get a chance…” he looked at Spike and swallowed. “I didn’t see. Is she okay? I mean, did she seem like…Buffy?”

A shadow crossed Spike’s face and then he shrugged. “Didn’t try to eat my brains, if that’s what you’re asking. Seemed okay; best as can be expected.” He looked at Xander for a moment and then said, “But you’re obviously not, since you didn’t go for the easy brain eating set-up I just handed you.”

Xander stared at him in horror for a minute and then laughed. Laughter felt strange in this place, but Xander didn’t stop to examine it.

He gave Spike a brief smile. “Too easy.”

Spike’s eyes on him were suddenly too expectant; looking for things that Xander was afraid weren’t there. He turned away from it, and back toward the grave. Stepping away from Spike, he crouched down and lifted the shovel off of the grave, uncovering the hole he’d half-filled.

“The thing, though, bigger than you and me and what happened this summer, and bigger than the apology you’re trying to stare out of me…” Xander turned his head and looked back at Spike. “Right?”

Spike dipped his head. “One of the things I’m waiting for, anyway.”

Xander frowned and turned back to the grave. “The thing is,” he said carefully, “where does grief go? I mean, how do you go from grief to joy and back in a second? Everything we felt all summer…does it _mean_ anything? And Buffy never saw any of that – all that time, it never happened for her. She was dead, and it was wrong, and then we were trying to be bring her back, and it was wrong and now she’s back and I just feel…I feel like I can’t just…shut off all those things I felt this summer. I mean, I watched her fall, and I held her in my arms, and then she was here,” he said, waving at the grave. “And that’s all she was. So now she’s supposed to be _un_dead? It just makes all of that stuff, all those feelings seem…meaningless.”

Xander chuckled, dropping his head and shaking it. “And I know how that sounds – like I’m feeling bad that my best friend’s not dead.” He turned around to look at Spike. “Stupid, huh?”

Spike stared at him for a moment and then shrugged. “Not stupid. Bit wrong-headed, but you’re only human. Death is just as malleable as life, love. Maybe not from your perspective, but I’m the unliving proof of it. I don’t believe in destiny, or fate, or any of that rot, lived too long to see things as a divinity shaping our end, but some things are without explanation. They just _are_, Xander.”

And Xander felt it again, that tug from Spike, that expectation. As if he were supposed to be giving something, and not just a clumsy apology for things that couldn’t be swept away with ‘sorry.’ Irritated beyond reason, he snorted softly. “Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t be looking to a vampire to understand the black and white of life and death, huh?”

“I may be a vampire, but, baby, you’re the walking dead.”

Xander spun around to see Spike behind him, and close, eyes burning into his with all of the anger that Xander had just sensed beneath the surface. “You protected her death,” Spike said with a glance toward the headstone and then looked back at Xander. “Now what are you going to do with her life? Or is that it, Xander? Buffy was gone, and you got to be the man, and now she’s back and you’re…”

Xander shoved Spike away from him and started to get to his feet. His breath left him in a rush as Spike slammed into him, his chest taking the brunt of Spike’s weight as they fell back onto the grave and the ruptured coffin cracked ominously beneath them.

“Pushed for it all summer, didn’t I, Xander?” Spike lay half atop Xander, his hands plunged into the dirt and grass on either side of them, keeping them both from being impaled on the shattered wood below. “Trying to get you to be the man I knew you were inside. Bit dark, but noble despite all of that. Show you how to figure a way to be both, let you find the _man_ underneath the fear. Get you to take what you wanted. Now I’m bloody givin’ it to you with both hands, and you’re still hiding behind the Slayer.”

Xander licked his lips, his body motionless as Spike slithered over him and the ground trembled around them. “I’m not hiding, Spike. You wanted to know, and now you do. I’m not hiding anything.”

“Oh, no?” Spike asked softly. His hips twisted and he grinned at the rush of breath that left Xander. “Explain to me then why part of you just wants to run back to that house, back to Buffy and your mates and spend the rest of your life not looking me in the eye and hoping I’ll just go away.” Spike dropped his full weight on Xander, his hands digging deeper in the earth so that he could drag their bodies together. “And part of you is just begging me to fuck you on the Slayer’s empty grave.”

Xander’s anger faded and he laughed softly. “Maybe I am. Both. Maybe. But even if this is something we both want, _we’re_ the only ones who will want it.” Xander felt the ground shift beneath them as Spike’s hips shuddered against his again and groaned. “Might want to watch the thrusting, buddy, you’re in more danger from the poky sticks than I am. _Fuck you on the Slayer’s grave_,” he snorted. “Nice. Rip that one off of Angelus?”

Spike grinned down at him. “Vampire, remember? Kinky.”

Xander sighed. “So my neck reminds me.” He sobered. “Seriously, Spike, even if we figure out a way to dig ourselves out of this mess we’re in, we’re not the only ones who’re gonna have to deal.”

“Xander…” Spike jumped up, his hand latched around Xander’s wrist and pulling them both to their feet. “Buffy’s back, and yeah, seems mostly all there,” he said bluntly. “But even if she’s not been tainted, somehow, by where she’s been, you’ve all got bigger things to worry about than how everyone’s gonna react to what you and I were getting up to during her little dirt nap. Or what _you_ even want to do. Not your fight, wasn’t it?”

Xander thought about being able to turn away now. Now that Buffy was back, and Giles would return and the good fight would come out swinging again. Down, but not out.

“Seems like you’ve got a few choices, really,” Spike said. “Head back to Slayer Central and stand at Buffy’s side again, with or without me.” Spike looked at him thoughtfully. “Or you can be out – for real this time.” Spike nodded back toward the road. “Gas up the car, kiss the Niblet goodbye and hit the road, find somewhere without girls with pointy sticks and monsters in the night. But that one…” he took a step toward Xander, his voice lowering. “That one you do without me. Because if all the reasons you’ve been hiding from me are true, then we’ve got a fight on our hands.” Spike grinned slowly. “And I’ve never run from a fight.”

“I’m staying,” Xander said firmly, this time not waiting for Spike to ask him what he wanted. Buffy was back…and Spike was _here_. Clarity was a beautiful thing. “Buffy’s going to need...I mean, I always knew I'd be there for Buffy, right up till the end, and you’re right – that one’s not all about me. And Willow,” Xander winced slightly. “That’s going to be a conversation. Although she said that you as far as you and I went…” Xander shrugged, his head ducked.

“Think Willow’s figured out that the one thing she needs to worry about having control over right now is herself.” Spike looked at him thoughtfully. “You sure about this, Xander? You can stay running scared, but that isn’t the man I came here tonight to find. I wanted the man who took what he wanted, who stood up to someone he loved even when he thought it could mean losing everything. The man I…”

Spike stopped and looked at Xander silently.

“The man you what?” Xander asked quietly.

Spike gave Xander an appraising look and then shook his head. “No, you don’t deserve the words.” He moved closer, the expectation back in his eyes as they stared fiercely into Xander’s. “The man who deserves them would _take_ them.”

Xander took a deep breath. He looked back at the grave, all of the fear stirring, eager to rush back and then turned back to Spike, everything that this was between them, whatever it was, honest and open. “I’m in it for the fight, but I don’t know if this is love, Spike. Love isn’t betrayal, and…and fucking and fighting and not knowing if it’s all just…”

Xander broke off as Spike chuckled softly.

Spike reached up, his hands cupping the back of Xander’s neck and drawing him forward until their lips were a breath apart. “Xander, _this_ is the very ecstasy of love.”

~END~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue references to BtVS "After Life"  
> Story betaed by Cityphonelines  
> Story inspired by Ladycat777 and Yindagger

**Author's Note:**

> 'Doubt the stars are fire…but never doubt I love' is from  
> Hamlet, Act II Scene II


End file.
